Rich's 34-Year Sobriety Journey and Heart Health Battle

First of all, I want to thank all the newcomers that raised their hands as newcomers in the

first 30 days.

And that's very important, you know, at this time, especially this home group as well.

I've been sober since March 1 of 1992.

And you know, I turned 31 a few months ago, and I didn't think I was going to stay sober

this long.

I guarantee you that, you know, because it was told to me my first meeting, my first

week of sobriety that if I did this for a year, my life would be different.

And I bought that concept from my first sponsor, Steve O.

And it's been a very good life.

I'll tell you what's going on with me today.

Recently, I had a triple bypass, 11, 15 years ago, and I've been having some health issues

with my heart and my clogged arteries, so on and so forth.

And the diagnosis at that time was, there's nothing they can do for me now, okay.

And my cardiologist told me, he goes, Rich, he goes, it's like waiting for the next earthquake.

That's what's going to go on with, you know, and that was very hard to swallow at that

time when I got the news.

So I asked for a second opinion, you know, I have to go to any link to do something to

hear the answer that I want to hear, okay.

And it might be the same result, okay.

That's what I have to look at.

And I have to face that, that's the way my life is going to turn, okay.

But I know that I've had a good life in sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous from the time that

I came back in in March, okay.

And I've been blessed.

I've been blessed.

I've had a lot of good things, good and bad days in sobriety.

Anyway, I never planned to come to Alcoholics Anonymous as a young kid.

I mean, that wasn't on the agenda at the time.

Because it didn't really run in my media family, but it ran in both sides of my family, mother

and father's side of cousins, uncles, so on and so forth, that I got to see different

types of drinking.

I have never taken a social drink in my life.

I don't know what social drinking is.

I have no concept of a social drink.

I picked up my first drink when I was 15 years old.

And the guy that you see here tonight is a totally different individual than I was when

I was 15.

I want you to know that, okay.

I didn't come in here dressed like this, okay.

It was taught for me from the members of License Session upon address and be respectful for

Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's where I was trained, okay.

And I was given a foundation in that fellowship of how to stay sober, how to be active in

Alcoholics Anonymous, and how to stay in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's where it was given to me, okay.

My current group right now is Pacific group.

That's where I'm a member as well.

But all my training came from LIS, okay.

And I'm totally grateful for that group of the people that were here that time.

The only one left that saw me come in is Bruce.

He's the only member here that felt quality of life.

And I saw Goyo come in later on.

But the thing is, you know, I didn't plan to come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

It wasn't on the agenda.

But when I took that first drink with my friend Ruben, we were at a party across the street

in Norwalk where we grew up at.

That night has changed my entire life, okay.

I don't like my story.

I'll be the first to tell you that, okay.

But I grew up in an environment where there was a lot of violence, okay.

And that's all I knew was violence at that time.

I was a 15-year-old and I was given a weapon and a big beer that night.

And I took both.

And I thought that's what everybody did in that neighborhood, okay.

And I took them and I became the bodyguard for that gig of beer that night.

And I always kept my cup full that night.

And I love the effect produced by alcohol.

I am not prejudiced about what it tastes like.

If it's going to get me there, I'm going to drink it, okay.

And I love booze.

I was a booze drinker.

I wasn't a drug addict.

But I did do different things.

I was a good student growing up.

I had good parents that gave me a lot of value.

I had a personality of doing good a day and I was a nuisance in the evening, I'll put

it that way.

And I went out there and did things that I normally wouldn't do sober, okay.

And what happened for me was in my senior year of high school, I used to play a lot

of sports in school and I got hurt and I started to hang out with different people.

And these guys were not role models, I'll put it that way.

But I started hanging out with these individuals and I started doing things that I normally

wouldn't do.

And it got me in a lot of trouble.

I ended up in the California Youth Authority on my first offense and they gave me a nine-year

sentence.

And out of that sentence, I did almost five years.

And it was a tragedy that happened that I've always lived with for the rest of my life.

I'm not proud of who I was and what I did, what I was involved in, but a young man lost

his life in a gang fight, okay.

And it happened that way.

A lot of us were sent to the Youth Authority, nine of us were sent up.

And I remember walking around that facility wondering, what could have went different

that day, okay.

But I can never replay that tape where it would be different, okay.

I accepted the results.

I accepted my guilty verdict, you know, the agreement that came upon it.

And I did my time.

And when I left the facility, well, prior to leaving that facility, I used to do a lot

of drugs in the institution.

Okay.

The only thing I wouldn't do was heroin.

I had the opportunity to do it, but if I would have done it, I wouldn't be here tonight.

But I did everything else that was in there.

And when I was released, I made up for my lost strength by going out there and just

let's get it done again.

And I wasn't supposed to, I was supposed to abstain from alcohol.

I didn't even know what the word abstain meant, okay.

But I started drinking from my last drunk and I got drunk right away and I started drinking

to make up for the loss.

And during that period of time, I had gotten involved in a relationship with my young lady

up north and we got married and she tried to control my drinking and I don't like that.

I like when people try to tell me how much I can drink, how I can drink, so on and so

forth.

And that relationship only lasted two years because I was very uncomfortable in that situation.

And that was back in the early 80s.

I went to a lot of nightclubs at that time, disco was in.

I had a great time at those bars and nightclubs.

I drank a lot and I did those things.

And to that period of time, I had never heard about Alcoholics Anonymous.

Not one word about it.

I knew that my drinking had changed.

And I met another young lady at that time up north and we got married and she accepted

my drinking basically.

She used to do her thing.

I did my thing and we were very compatible at that time.

And we had a boy in that relationship, a rich junior, and he's my only child.

And you know, I tried to do the things as a husband, but I was a failure at it, okay.

And as time went on, my drinking changed and it became very ugly.

We ended up getting divorced.

She got custody of my son at that time.

And I knew later on that I would get custody of junior, somehow I was going to get him.

And she screwed up and the courts granted me full custody of my son.

And I took him and became the father for him.

And junior was a good kid to raise and he was a good boy.

And you know, I tried to get sober back in 1985.

That's when I first introduced myself into Alcoholics Anonymous to a guy named Jack D.

He had been sober 30 years at that time.

And Jack took me to my first meeting.

He saw something, I don't remember how I met Jack, but he knew there was something going

on with Rich.

He took me to a meeting here down south, you know, and I wasn't going to tell you folks

that I was alcoholic for one.

I wasn't going to tell you I can identify with you for two, okay.

But the examples that I was seeing at that time at those meetings, I was just like, I

knew that, okay.

But I wasn't going to plead guilty to any of that stuff, you know.

I tried to stay sober.

I bought the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's all involved, but I never read them.

I didn't have a sponsor at that time.

I didn't read the book.

I didn't do any steps.

I didn't have any commitments at the meetings.

I just went there just to hang out and listen to what you guys had to say.

That's all it was.

I was a taker.

And it was a Friday night, and I had been dry for three and a half years at that time.

It was a Friday night.

There was a lady speaking here in the valley, I believe it was.

And she gave a great talk, a good talk, you know.

But I had that reservation in my head.

I still had another drunken.

I knew it was coming, okay.

And I went out to a liquor store right after that meeting and bought me a 12-pack of Budweiser

and a fifth of Quavico.

And I said, let's get it on, find out, okay.

Those were my exact words.

Junior saw me take that drink, and he became very disappointed in me at that time.

And I stayed off for roughly almost two years after that relapse.

And I knew that my drinking was coming to an end.

I knew it.

And I happened to be at a bachelor party one Saturday night.

I was a mess.

I was a mess.

And I knew it was coming to an end.

And I had stayed in my apartment at that time on my recliner drinking a Budweiser that morning,

Sunday morning.

I'm going to come in with my third wife now at that time, but she wasn't my wife at that

time.

But she came in, he came in with Carolyn, and they both looked at me.

And they were both disappointed what they saw.

Junior walked into his bedroom, came back out about a minute or two later.

And he had my old one-year medallion for my first time of trying to get silver to activate.

And he threw, and he hit me in the forehead with it.

And he says, Dad, why don't you try this program one more time?

It might work.

And then he says, why don't you try getting a sponsor this time?

And this is out of an eight-year-old, okay?

And I was shocked.

I was really shocked.

And I'm trying to figure out, where did he get this information from?

Okay.

But he was right for an eight-year-old.

He knew what he was talking about.

That was on February 29th of '92, it was a leak that year.

And I went back into license session March 1st.

And the reason I didn't go to that meeting when I was sober the first time, because there

was a lot of drug addicts at that park.

It was off of Parthenia.

I don't remember the cross street.

But that's one of the reasons I didn't go to that meeting, because of what was outside.

I never took the step inside those doors to see what was inside that meeting.

But after that relapse, I decided to go give that meeting a shot.

And when I went in there, I heard a lot of conversations going on.

People made sense.

They were enjoying life, and they were laughing and smiling.

And I hadn't seen that in a long, long time.

And I got involved with that fellowship.

I got involved with that group.

And there was this one guy named Steven Allen.

He kept bothering me, he kept sponsoring me, he kept sponsoring me, he ragged on me all

the way.

And I said, "No."

So I ended up getting a sponsor, because this one guy, he had a laugh and smile.

And that was Steve.

I got him on a Saturday night.

And he took me out to the parking lot, and I'll never forget the conversation that him

and I had.

He asked me if I believed in a power grid room to myself.

And I said, "Well, I know there's something out there, I just don't know what it is."

He goes, "Just believe it, I believe."

And I've never forgotten those words from him.

And he says, "I guarantee you something, Richie, because if you do this for a year, I guarantee

your life will be different."

And I've never forgotten those words.

And I said, "I'll see if he's telling me this or not."

So in spite of what he told me, I decided to stay sober for a year.

And I don't know if I did it over resentment or what, but I was going to prove to him and

everybody else that I could do it for a year, and I did it for a year.

I didn't know I was going to have to share my story after a year at the podium, but I

ended up doing that as well.

But one of the things that Steve got me involved was into the steps.

And I am so grateful that he got me into the steps, and especially the fourth and fifth

step, because I have been carrying a lot of baggage in my life.

I had a lot of wreckage.

I had a lot of amends to make, but I was willing to do those stuff to clean up my side of the

street.

And I had to make amends to that second wife.

And I hated it.

I hated it with a passion.

But I did.

I made that amends to her, and she still doesn't talk to me to this day, but I had to do what

I had to do.

And I had to make amends to my son, Junior.

And that was another hard one to do.

That's when you're giving it to a little 10-year-old.

But I did it.

And a lot of financial amends I made, the people I ripped off in the streets, I had

to go out and face them guys.

And they were old gang members from my neighborhood.

And I mean, it made me kind of nervous, I'll put it that way.

But honestly, it got true.

It made me a little nervous, but I did it.

And I cleared all that stuff up.

I got remarried in my third marriage with Carolyn.

And we stayed married for almost eight years, and things didn't work out for us at that

time.

And recently, I gave her a phone call.

She's still alive, but she doesn't remember who I am.

And I spoke to her for a few minutes over the phone and says, "I've got to know your

sobriety."

And she didn't believe me, and this is Richard calling her.

She didn't know who I was.

And she's in a medical facility right now in Van Nuys.

And she was a good lady.

She was a darn good lady.

I was the idiot.

I was the terrible husband.

And I couldn't see those stuff, those things I was doing in that relationship.

I always wanted to point a finger at her, but I refused to look at the finger pointing

back at me.

And I ran from that relationship.

That's the honest-to-god truth.

I ran, and the kitchen got too hot for me, and I decided to get out of that relationship.

And that's what I did.

And I've stayed single ever since I pointed from that marriage.

And I've done a lot of things in sobriety.

What's the title for this?

Oh, okay.

And I've done a lot of things in sobriety.

He has two sons now.

I have two grandsons.

They keep me going.

They keep me darn going, that little one, that little five-year-old.

He really has me going.

And my life has been different ever since that time.

Junior has still been a good kid, 39 years old now.

And I go, "Where have the years gone?

Where have the years gone?"

I know I got sober, and so many people weren't even born yet.

It's been a blessing to be sober.

I know I wouldn't trade it in today.

One of the things that Steve-O got me involved with was hospitals and institutions.

And I did that from the time I had six months of sobriety.

I had panels that I said I would never go there.

I would never go there.

And I got a panel when I first was up north.

I was sent up north to do something, and I ended up going on a panel.

And I ended up going to the same institution that I was involved in.

I went to the same dorm that I was involved in.

And I got to see my old room.

I never thought I would go back there again, step feet on those grounds again.

But I got to do that.

When I was incarcerated in Norwalk at the youth authority there on Bloomfield, I got

to go back there for a year to run that panel on the yard.

I got to go back to Western, where I was there for four months, and do a panel there for

four years in Supermax.

And I've had panels at California State Prison, and I did that one for five years of maximum

security.

And I saw a lot of things going on in H&I panels.

I was at the VA one time and doing a panel there as well.

And one of the tenants there decided to go take a shower, come out naked, lay in front

of my AA meeting.

You know, that shocked the heck out of me.

I thought I've seen everything in alcoholics and all that, I really did, you know.

I had that situation happen, you know, I've had medical facilities where patients have

come at me, you know, they're not all there at times, okay, and I've had that experience

as well.

And, but I have some good panels as well, different facilities I've been to, and I haven't

been on a panel for some years now, but I, you know, I enjoyed when I was doing it.

I did it for approximately 20 years going to H&I and getting involved with the board

there as well.

And, you know, becoming secretary at one of the meetings, a license session was an experience.

I enjoyed it.

I was a cake queen on Saturday night.

And if you ever do a cake on a hot sunny night on Saturday night, don't bring an ice cream

cake.

I did that and it melted during the break.

And I'll never forget that experience, showing that with one of our members, Lydia, Lydia

W. was my assistant, okay, and our cake fell apart, we just scraped it off, you know.

But my favorite commitment when I first got sober was doing the ashtrays.

I missed those ashtrays of washing them and stacking them and putting them away.

That was my favorite commitment where I did it for two years and I didn't want to give

it up.

I did, you know.

But it was the fellowship in that group that got me going into alcoholics and honors.

And I'll always be totally grateful for license session.

That's where it started for me.

Yeah, I came from the Pacific group to format, so on and so forth, but my foundation was

given to me there.

And they asked me, what kind of foundation do you consider it?

And I was thinking about the foundation of a home, where the floor is solid, the walls

might fall, but the foundation stays intact.

I've had days where I have fallen down, you know, I felt like the walls fell down, but

my foundation stayed intact with my feet moving forward still into the meetings, you know,

and I go to meetings constantly all the time.

I go to meetings when things are going good, when life is good, nothing's happening because

I want, don't everyone forget how bad it gets, you know.

I can go to meetings when I'm feeling crap and stuff like that.

I know I'm feeling crappy, you know, I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to be there, but I still show up.

But it's very important that I go to meetings when life is good because I can get self-centered

to think, you know what, I don't need to go to the set, you know, I don't have to go there

Tuesday night.

I'll get somebody to cover my commitment.

I can do this Wednesday.

I'll get Nolan to cover me Wednesday night, you know.

I can play that game or another game, you know, and do one or two meetings a week and

get away with it.

But I don't do that.

You know, I've been going to at least four meetings, meetings, and I was doing six or

seven a week for a long, long time.

After all these years, it's Friday.

Meetings are very important, you know.

I know that I wouldn't trade it in today and, you know, recently, you know, I believe that

God works in a mysterious way.

I really do.

I owe a lot of my surviving to a loving God, okay, the steps, the toss ups, and the traditions

of alcoholics anonymous as well.

And if you would have told me something would have happened this way, I would have told

you, no, you're crazy.

It won't happen now.

I was minding my own business, really was minding my own business.

And I got an email from a young lady, nice lady, and we started corresponding.

Okay, now we're dating.

And it's totally different because at times, a relationship like that can scare me, okay.

She is very, very smart, for one, and I hate smart women.

Okay.

And she's very presentable, okay.

And I want to put a penitent on her, okay, but that's not her style, okay.

She goes, if you want to meet me, and sometimes people have a voice and you hear that voice,

okay.

I live at this one place where I go on Sunday morning, if you want to meet.

So me, my ego, I said, I'll show you, I showed up and I saw her coming, I go, we're in the

tracks, okay.

It was a very good, nice attraction, and we've been going out ever since, you know, and we're

going on seven months of our relationship now.

And she doesn't take my crap, that's one thing good about Christine.

She doesn't take my crap.

She doesn't have a program.

She doesn't have Alan on in her life, but one thing that she has, she has a very strong

Christian faith and a God of her understanding, and she's presented that to me.

It's different, okay, it's different, but it's been very rewarding for me, you know,

because I always think about my third step when I took it to make that decision and turn

my life to a care of God in my understanding.

But it was, to me, it wasn't strong enough, okay.

This has enhanced my sobriety as well.

The faith is showing me, the people that have been introduced to me from her parish, and

it's been different, you know.

I never thought I would get sober, for one.

I never thought I would end up in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I never thought I'd be going

to a church on Sundays, okay, but all these things that have happened for me, I still

get that today.

Why do you do it?

You know, and it's been by the examples of the old timers that have shown me a better

way of living.

And a guy named Jim, Jim Bath from the Pacific group, I had to go speak at the Balboa Park

one year, and it was 105, and he wanted, they wanted me to wear a suit and tie, and I said,

"You guys crazy?

It's too hot to wear a suit and tie."

And Jim says, "Would you do it any different for us?"

I go, "No."

He said, "Then you go in the suit and tie."

And I go off out of that park soap, you know, but that's the stuff that I've been doing

in my sobriety all these years.

I haven't changed much, okay.

I've got more gray hair than anything else that's changing me.

When I came to this group, I had black hair, and I had a lot more than this, you know,

and it's thinning out, you know.

I'm glad I'm alive today, I'll put it down.

I'm very grateful that I get up every morning and I'm breathing, okay, and I have another

day of living because I don't know when that earthquake's coming, you know, I have no clue

when it's gonna show up, you know, and I'm gonna go see the doctor May 1st for a second

opinion and I truly believe that there is a solution out there that I can stick around

here a little longer.

I believe that, okay.

And I think through loving God that he is showing me a way of accepting things that

I don't want to accept.

That's the best way I can put it.

There's a lot of acceptance going on in my life today, you know.

Someone asked me, "Did I have any fear?"

And I says, "No, I don't have fear."

I don't have fear, okay, because some time ago, I forget how many years it was, I was

going through a procedure for a stent procedure in my heart and I went into cold blue and

they lost me for 45 seconds, okay, and I went through the gray tunnel into the bright light

and I've experienced that.

But I want you to know something that Bruce reminded me of something when I first got

here.

We can walk through anything in sobriety.

I don't care what it is.

We can walk through anything.

I had 45 days of sobriety at that time and I had gotten beaten up in a robbery attempt

by three individuals hit with a claw hammer 38 times, crowbar, fire extinguisher straight

in my face, okay, and I took a beating for, I don't know what, for $2.

That's what it was.

And that was on a Tuesday night.

It was book study that night and a week later, I was at the men's stag meeting looking like

Popeye and my sponsor says, "You know, there is a solution to this problem, to your feelings

about it.

There's a living solution to the problem."

I go, "Oh yeah, what is it, Steve?

I want to hear it."

He says, "You need to pray for them for 90 days."

I go, "Are you crazy?"

You know, and he says, "Well, look what you've done over the years.

They've prayed for you."

But I was willing to do it, to forgive those individuals for 90 days.

And it was the hardest thing I've ever done in sobriety.

It has to be number one up there.

It's the hardest thing.

And I had to forgive it.

I saw that my son had to forgive it because he got hit too.

And what gathered me through that whole process was the men at licensed session.

They're the ones that got me through it and the women as well.

But if it wasn't for the guys at that group, I don't know if I'd be sitting here tonight.

I really don't believe that.

You know, and I say that we can walk through anything.

I don't care what it is.

I'm testimony to that.

And I don't have any resentments over that situation.

I don't have any anger or anything like that.

But I know that I've been blessed to be alive.

That's the bottom line.

I've been blessed.

I've been overpaid in my sobriety.

I've been very overpaid, you know, and I still keep doing the things I've been taught in

my first year of sobriety.

Still going to meetings, still getting commitments, still calling my sponsor three times a week.

That hasn't changed in 31 years, you know, and I don't know what lies they had for all

you folks, the newcomers, especially the newcomers, you know.

The only thing I can tell you is that if you want what we have, just keep doing what we're

doing.

There's a lot of good examples in this room.

I know.

I've seen them.

I've seen them in other groups as well, the examples that are enhanced my sobriety as

well.

And I'm so blessed to have met the Clancy Eye when he's showing me what kind of idiot

I was to bring that out to me, you know, Tom Bichard is my sponsor now.

And Tom is a good man.

He's a good role model for me.

I like what Tom does.

I like how he carries himself in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and he's not afraid

to call me on my stuff.

He's a good man.

He sponsors 50 guys and I don't know how he does it, but he does.

Okay.

And Karen, thank you for calling on me.

I've always stayed in contact with somebody here from this group.

I'll show up periodically for a meeting.

I'll be back here.

I know in July they're here.

Theresa F speed.

And, you know, I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I never thought I'd get to say those words because I always ask the old timer, how do

you get there?

How do you get there?

You know, don't drink it, don't die.

And you'll learn how to get there, you know, and I think I've found that on after 30.

So thanks for having me here tonight.