Randy’s 31‑Year Sobriety Journey: From Court‑Mandated Meetings to Lasting Recovery

- Usually many will enter one of my--

- I wanna get that one, to give me the nervous seat.

My name is Randy Miller and I'm an alcoholic.

First, I'd like to thank Karen for inviting me here

and Greg for joining me.

And thank you, Tracy, for your 10 minutes.

You know, I knew I was an alcoholic

a long time before I got here.

And you're probably thinking,

wait, you know, way to go, Karen.

You invited a real genius here

to do this as an alcoholic for a time.

But alcoholics, no, I had been to a bunch of meetings

along the way because the courts were sending me

and I'd wake up with, you know,

incomprehensible demoralization.

Maybe I'll go to an AA meeting.

And I went to all the Valley Club meetings

when it was on, well, I think way back when it was

on Sadiqua, I think, when I was in my 20s.

Went on Lindley and, you know, on Van Owen.

And so, periodically, I'd go to meetings

'cause either the courts would send me.

And I mean, I knew I was an alcoholic.

I mean, first of all,

I got a whole bunch of drunk driving tickets.

And I'm a bad, you can ask Greg,

I'm a bad driver when I'm sober.

I just got a newer car for me.

I just bought a car for my sister.

It has, on the car, it has one of these things

that if you go over the line, it buzzes.

And so, my wife was with me last week

and we were driving back from, like, Ventura area.

She wanted to take a nap.

She was tired and she couldn't sleep

'cause the people would keep going home, right?

I mean, and so, I use that information,

the fact I knew I was an alcoholic.

I mean, by this time, I was drinking heavily.

But why do I need a bunch of people like you?

I mean, I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous.

I knew the success stories.

But if I know I'm an alcoholic,

why do I need a bunch of people like you

telling me what I already know?

And the great gift of Alcoholics Anonymous, for me,

is just being able, if I had an objective,

if I had a goal right here,

it would be to get sober and comfortable at the same time.

Now, I could do both of those, but not together.

I could be sober, but when I was sober,

I mean, I appeared to kind of have my act together,

but I was crazy, and I was always depressed,

and I always felt bad.

And I could be comfortable.

I could be comfortable for a period when I was drunk,

but I could never put the two together.

And just to simplify everything,

that's kind of what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me.

But I was talking to the,

I was always talking to the wrong people.

I mean, I had two brothers that are younger than me,

and they were both drinkers, but they were social drinkers.

They'd drink when they had to,

and then in their later years,

they'd get things like Uber and things like that.

But I never did.

And I said, "Why do you do that?"

And my wife,

just to get the statistics out of the way real quick,

I've been sober.

It'll be 31 years on July 13th.

And I didn't get sober until I was 47, almost 48,

so you can kind of do the math.

I'll be 31 in July.

So I'll be 79 on my next birthday.

But all those years and all of those drunk drivings

and all the things that I did,

and I've been married to the same woman,

which is a miracle,

and you'll verify that by the time I'm done with work.

I've been married in March.

It was 54 years.

And she's been through hell.

I mean, I mean, it's just unbelievable.

I mean, it sounds terrible.

So sometimes I think I should divorce for just being dumb.

But, you know, so they've been married for a day,

and she's been through hell.

She's been through, you know, all of that.

And ironically, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley,

and this is kind of my old stomping grounds.

And I didn't drink in high school

because a lot of my friends,

most of them turned out not to be alcoholics.

A lot of them are dead now for various reasons.

But they'd drink, and I'd observe them.

And I'd go to a party,

and I'd carry a beer around with me

so people wouldn't bug me.

I'd have that beer last me,

but I never drank enough for it to click in.

I mean, for the genomic craving to start.

So I didn't really start drinking.

I know a lot of guys that I'm drinking alcoholically

until I was in college.

I know a lot of my friends got sober age-wise

before I started really drinking heavily.

And when I was in high school,

I went to a couple of local high schools here.

I went to Birmingham High School,

and then I also went to a private school called Montclair.

And I looked at it on paper.

I mean, I was captain of the baseball team,

and I was student body vice president,

and I was editor of the sports section of the paper.

And I don't like to brag from the podium,

but I guess I already have.

But I was also, back then,

I don't think they could do it now,

'cause I just couldn't do it now,

but they had the alphabet, you know?

So A, B, C, D, E, F.

So A was like most athletic,

and B was most beautiful,

and C was cutest, or something.

D was dumbest, and it'd go through all, whatever it was.

And remember, this is well over 60 years ago.

But I was K, and I was most kissable.

(laughing)

So I looked at it on paper,

and people would think that I kind of had my act together,

but inside I was always uncomfortable.

I remember my dad picked me up from baseball practice one day,

and he said, "God, everything seems to be

going pretty good for you."

And I remember saying this, and I don't know why.

I said, "Well, how come I don't feel better?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I don't know, good things are happening,

but I never feel comfortable."

And what I didn't know is that that was part of my alcoholism.

I mean, it was part of my alcoholism.

I mean, there's a lot of people that aren't alcoholic,

so don't feel comfortable all the time.

So then I, when I graduated from high school,

I went to just a local college here,

and I got into a fraternity, it was a local fraternity.

And some of those guys, I was talking to you about Oklahoma,

and one of my best friends lives in Norman,

now we're at the University of Oklahoma,

but then I started doing it,

and I remember the night I got drunk,

and like I said, a lot of people,

maybe there's people in this room

that got sober before I got drunk,

'cause I was, I guess I was 19, 18, 19,

and I was pledging a fraternity,

and they were at a party, and they said,

"Miller, we want you to drink."

And I said, "Well, I ain't drinking."

I had my beer, my beer in my hand,

and they said, "No, no, we really want you to drink."

I said, "Well, I have a date here."

And they said, "No, don't worry, we'll take care of her."

And so they gave me a, I had a wine in one hand,

I had the Red Mountain,

some of the finest beverages of the time,

and a beer in the other hand, they had me drinking.

And I don't remember my exact thought

that that was the first time I got drunk,

but it was something to the effect of,

"No wonder they all drink,"

because it was the first time I was ever drunk,

and it was the first time that I ever had that feeling.

And from that time on, I would thought,

and it was all the time, I'm drinking all the time,

and instead of my priority, if I was going to a party,

or if I was going someplace, or if I was going on a date,

or it was the alcohol, and then whatever the event was,

and it just took a short time,

because, I mean, I was an alcoholic,

I mean, I didn't know it just 'cause I was sober

and hadn't drank, that didn't really make any difference.

So after a while, and one of the reasons looking back,

I knew I was an alcoholic,

I mean, I got just a whole bunch of,

whole bunch of drunk driving.

They called it 502s then.

In fact, if I had the same record now,

and for a while there,

if you got two or three a few years ago,

then you'd be in the slammer.

But I was getting them all the time,

and I just got stupid ones.

I mean, just dumb drunk driving tickets.

I remember I, by this time, I was married,

and I had two daughters,

and I also wasn't kind of with my alcoholism.

I wasn't the most faithful guy.

And so I, people make geographics.

I mean, you hear people that move to New York,

or they ended up in Europe, or somewhere down in Mexico,

or they ended up in, you know, maybe in Chicago.

But I ended up, I took a geographic,

'cause I had a new friend from work,

and I ended up in, I ended up in Saugus.

(laughing)

That was my geographic.

So I figured my wife was my problem,

and I moved out, and I moved in with my new friend out,

and Lily of the Valley Mobile Home Park.

(laughing)

And she, and plus, I not only was doing these things to,

I mean, to my wife and my kids,

but it also to these other people

that I kind of, you know, took captive in.

So I was living out there.

And then I used to always measure my, you know,

like this was for more, maybe a 20 minute drive here.

I'd always measure my drives like this is a half hour drive,

or this is an hour drive.

That's what most of it, you know, this is a,

you know, a 30 mile drive.

But me, it was a, it was like a half pint drive, or a way.

(laughing)

It was, you know, a six pack drive, or,

and I was, and I had a little Volkswagen convertible

at the time, we'll get more about that in a little bit.

But I was driving to my new home,

and looked down, and I'd had an appointment,

and I had, on the seat next to me,

I had a bunch of empty beer cans.

And I was a little late getting to my new home,

and said, "Ah, shit, I wanna stop and just throw them away."

So I don't know what the odds of this are,

but I was on Bokeh Canyon.

And at that time, Bokeh Canyon was real desolate.

I mean, there weren't very many people driving on it.

So I had like a big car, and so I reached down,

and started grabbing the beer cans.

I don't know what the odds of this are,

but I just started tossing them,

'cause it was real desolate.

And I hit a cop, giving somebody else a ticket.

And so that person, if they're still alive, owe me,

because they left the person that was there,

and followed me into Lillia Valley Trailer Park.

And so then I was happy with my test

that I got fairly good at.

And I mean, just dumped drunk driving.

I got like, I totally got like seven or eight of them.

And I remember the last one that I got,

and I still hadn't gone to, you know,

I was on the 101 freeway, and the cold water off ramp.

And at the time, my wife's parents lived right there,

kind of close to where I live now.

And they were having some sort of dinner or something,

and it was probably eight o'clock at night.

And so there was a little liquor store,

but I was ready to turn left.

I said, "I better get a couple more beers."

So I made a right-hand turn from the left-hand lane.

There was a cop right behind me.

And so he followed me into the standard gas station,

still there.

And so I got out of the car,

and then I just started walking to the police car.

And I said, "What are you doing?"

And I said, "I'm getting in your backseat."

- Oh, no.

- So, I said, "Wait."

And I said, "No, I have to take that test, right?"

And he said, "Yeah."

And I said, "It's okay, you can just take me

and I can't pass it."

And he said, "How do you know?"

I said, "I've taken it eight times."

- Oh, that shows.

- And so there I was in the Van Nuys jail again.

In fact, the judges got to kind of, kind of know me.

And I always had the type of job where I didn't have to,

I mean, in my later years,

I didn't have to be anywhere at any certain time.

And so I was pretty much a daily drinker.

And then I'd have terrible hangovers,

but then I found that I don't really have to have a hangover

if I don't want to.

I can get rid of the hangover real quick.

So what you usually find at 6.30 in the morning

at some local bars right around here

was me sitting there,

kind of dressed like I am now a lot of times

and drinking.

And a lot of times there'd be maybe 10 people in there.

Between the 10 people, maybe there'd be 50 teeth

and 30 of them were mine.

So, you know, so I'd be in there and then I'd go to work

and I'd just get, you know,

have a drink enough to get kind of rid of the hangover.

And so I had all these things.

Then I had a job right down the street here.

It was a mortgage company

and a friend of mine from college, it was his company.

And so I was working there.

They had a theme party one night, right here.

And it was, you know, costume, roaring 20s type thing.

So I rented an outfit and I had, I had a mustache.

And so I had a black shirt and a white tie

and I had the spats and I had a phony gun

and I had, you know, the fedora and I looked pretty cool.

But, and I had, at that time I had this girl

that was a friend of mine and she was just a friend

and she'd drive me and she worked there

and she'd drive me into a lot of places.

But I still had that same little Volkswagen convertible

at the time, so it was parked there,

but I was planning on her giving me a ride home.

And then, I don't know, it was about one in the morning

and it was kind of coming to an end.

And then her husband showed up for some reason.

I can't remember what the whole deal was.

I said, oh, I'll just drive home.

And I was, I mean, really drunk

and I was driving up Lindley right here.

And I don't know if you can see now,

but my nose here was kind of screwed up.

And the next thing I knew, and so I was driving home

and I always got passing out, falling asleep mixed up,

but I did one of those two things.

Thank God, you know, I'm one of those people

that like probably a lot of you can relate to this.

I look back at all of the thousands and thousands of miles

that I drove drunk that I never heard anybody with myself.

And I drove back from Mexico.

I remember with my two daughters in the backseat

when they were like 12 and 10.

And I mean, all kinds of things like that.

But the next thing I knew, and I just barely remember it,

there was a bunch of people over me

and they gave me the Northridge Hospital right here.

And I didn't know what was going on and the nurse,

the nurse was in there.

I said, "What's going on?"

I said, "I know it's an accident, but what's going on?"

And said, "Well, you're lucky you're alive."

What had happened is I had fallen asleep or passed out

and I hit a, remember, I'm a little old,

so I hit a parked Cadillac

and I went to the windshield of the car

and it kind of ripped my, it ripped my,

and I had all these scars and sores all over.

And I had, by this time they had gauzed me all up

and I looked like the mummy.

I had, you know, you could see, you know,

I had eye slips and I could talk and stuff.

And the nurse was there and I heard her in the hall

and I could tell the police were coming

'cause I heard her saying, "Yeah, no, he was drunk.

He was really drunk, I'm thinking on it."

She said, "I can't get another drunk driving ticket."

So she came back and said, "Where are my clothes?"

And she said, "Right in the closet,

but your white tie is all pink and from blood

and the clothes are there."

I said, "I just want to know 'cause they're rented."

So she left.

And so remember I have all this, I looked at the mummy,

I have all this stuff all over my face

and it's about four or five in the morning by this time,

about four in the morning.

And I, when I tried to call my wife to come and get me,

but by this time she had the phone off most of the time.

And so I decided to hitchhike home.

And so it's four in the morning.

You're off in the streets out there trying to hitchhike home.

I had my hat on and I had my shirt on

and I'm trying to hitchhike home

and nobody would pick me up.

And so finally I called my next door neighbor

and my wife came down.

That's one of those, you know,

incompetent demoralization.

And my two daughters were in the car and there I was.

And so the next day I went to one of these urgent care

places that I think was right, not very far from here.

And I went in and the doctor, she was a,

and I kind of told her what had happened.

You're the guy that snuck out of Northridge Hospital

last night.

And I said, "Yeah."

And I said, "But what's wrong?"

I said, "Well, your nose is," you know,

I still didn't know exactly 'cause I still had all this gauze

and I didn't know.

He says, "Your nose," you know, he ripped your nose off

and they pulled the thing off and all these things.

So that same day they called the plastic surgeon,

which was on, and he kind of, you know, sewed up my nose.

And I stayed there for a couple of days

and the guy that was my boss and he was also an alcoholic

and he died from heart disease probably 20 years ago.

But I had to go get my car 'cause I had to,

and it was total, but I had some paperwork in there

and some things I had to get out of the car.

And so we were at the impound lot.

And so all of a sudden he goes, "Oh my God, look it, look it."

I said, "Yeah, no, Howard, I know it, it's total."

He says, "No, no, look it."

And so where I had gone to the windshield

and all this, you know, the glass and stuff like this,

and on the tip of one of the pieces of glass was my nose.

Was my piece of nose.

And so my mind's already working.

And so what I did is I took that little piece of nose.

I mean, like I said, I know I'm an alcoholic, but I wanted to go to AA all the time.

So I figured, I mean, I always believed in God at some level.

And so what I did is I figured I'd work my own program.

So what I did is I took, he had to show you how long it was.

He had a hole or a camera in his car.

I said, "Take a picture of the car."

So I took a picture of the car and if you looked at the car,

you'd say, "There's no way the guy lived through that."

'Cause I mean, it was all both ways.

Of course, it had the engine and the band.

It was just like a little party.

And so I took the piece of nose.

It looked like one of those crummy potato chips

you see at the bottom of the thing.

So I took a picture of the car.

And so I took the picture and I put it in my bathroom

and then stuck my nose to it.

I scotch taped the nose.

And like I said, I always believed in God.

So I'd get up in the morning and I'd pray.

I'd say my prayers.

I'd look at the, I'd look for, so I'd look in the mirror

and I was all, you know, my nose was all fouled up

and I saw band-aids all over me and I'd say my prayers.

And kind of the realization that I was lucky

to live through this.

And so I did this for a while and I didn't drink,

you know, during that whole time.

My new program was pretty good.

And so I'd get up and then one morning I was, you know,

shaving, kind of going right past the car.

And the steam from the sink came up and in my picture

and the nose, they kind of floated down to the ground

and my dog Bob came in and he ate my nose.

And so that was it.

And so I still, I put your picture up in that program,

you know, it was working for a while and then it didn't.

I mean, you always find a reason, you know,

one more reason to go and maybe I'll just have one drink

or maybe there was a bar by this time.

My favorite bar was just right here on Roscoe and Tampa.

I think it was called the College Inn.

And so I, that would kind of be my place.

So one day I was driving along and, you know,

you always rationalize, you always make,

maybe it'll be different this time.

So I said, I'm just going to go in there and have one beer

to see if I can do that.

So I did, I went in, I had one beer.

I could do that right now.

I could go to a bar probably and say,

I'm only going to have one beer.

I'm not going to test it out, but, and so I did that.

And then I went and I did that for a couple of nights

and the people at the bartender knew that I was an alcoholic.

You're playing with fire here.

Just going to, it'll be okay.

And then it was two beers.

Then I was off and running again.

And then I was there and I was drinking in the morning

and I was working, by this time,

I was working at Great Western Bank and,

but I didn't have to be at work at any certain time

'cause I was a salesperson.

But I'd call in periodically and say,

I'm not really going to be in today.

And so I had a weekend where I was really bad

and I called in to my boss and I said,

I'm probably not going to be in for about three

or four days.

I said, what's wrong?

And I don't know where this came from,

but I said, I have, I have a mononucleosis.

And so, and so I went out and I drank

for two or three days and I was, you know,

and then I had to go back to work at some point.

And so I went in, I was sitting at my desk

and my boss came out and she said,

what are you doing here?

And I said, well, I'm well.

He said, well, you have mononucleosis.

I said, yeah.

And he says, well, that's highly contagious.

So I need a note or something from your doctor.

And so I went to the same urgent care place.

I said, Nate, the doctor remembered me

and I said, can you write me a note?

It says, I don't have mononucleosis.

I said, did you ever have mononucleosis?

And I said, no, I never had it.

It just write me a note saying I don't have it.

And she wouldn't do it.

And so I went back and my boss went into her office

and I sat down with her and I said,

I got something to tell you.

He says, what's that?

And I say, I think I'm an alcoholic.

And she said something very profound, duh.

But Bray Westman just started sending people

to treatment center.

And I was the first person.

So I went to a treatment center

at Valley Presbyterian Hospital on Vanholland.

And I was the first patient from Bray Western Bank.

And they spent, I mean, a lot of money

through their insurance.

So I was there for four, five weeks.

I think it happened there.

It would be like all of us being in the same,

and so I became real close to them.

And I had a picture.

I have a picture at home with five of us, four guys.

I became really good friends with, and there's a picture.

And the other four guys were all dead within two years.

And I started thinking, man, this is a bad deal.

And I really never was too much into drugs,

but so various reasons they all did.

And I had it.

And my neighbor, by the time I lived up in West Hills,

my neighbor was my sponsor.

Now I knew he was an alcoholic.

Well, actually I didn't know at first.

My daughter was babysitting his kids.

And I said, where does he go all the time?

He's always coming.

You have a good gig, you're babysitting.

And she said, dad, I think he has the same thing you do,

but he goes to meetings.

I said, well, that's good for him, but I don't want it.

So then I started making rules.

My number one rule is I'm not gonna drink in Los Angeles.

And so I had a friend, female friend again,

that had a place in Oxnard.

So I said, why don't you come with me?

And I played tennis, and she played tennis.

So why don't you come in for the weekend?

And so I started rationalizing.

I started doing it once more.

I stopped at a liquor store in Tampa,

and I waited until I crossed West Lake Boulevard.

If anybody's interested,

that's kind of the borderline of Ventura.

So I drank that six pack on the way.

And that whole weekend, I just got really drunk.

And I'll fast forward here and see.

I mean, I really went on a roll then.

And it just got worse and worse.

And my life finding was, she couldn't do this anymore.

And I was this terrible husband.

Besides being an alcoholic,

never knowing when I was gonna be home.

I remember the summers.

I hated summers because she was a teacher,

and summer she'd be home.

But during the pregnancy, she'd be gone.

So I could stay in bed until 11 or whatever.

And I remember one morning,

just to show you what a jerk I was.

I was probably 10 in the morning.

I was feeling terrible, getting over.

And she came in, and she was just at what's in split.

What are you doing?

I mean, what?

And if you're not an alcoholic, you can just observe it.

You just don't understand it exactly.

And so she started.

Says, you know, if you put as much effort into your work,

and into doing constructive things,

you do your drinking,

you could probably make, you know, $150,000 a year.

At that time, it was really a lot.

I had a hangover.

I was feeling terrible.

And I just looked at her and I said,

"If I made $150,000 a year, you'd be history."

And I was just such a jerk.

I mean, just when I look back, and anyway.

So this guy is my sponsor now.

Finally, I went to some meetings with him,

and I went for about two months,

and then went out for my last run.

And it was an end up with a hit-and-run accident.

So I went down and he knocked on his wall.

And I said, "Okay, I'll try your deal."

And he said, "Well, you're losing everything."

I said, "You gotta put AA before everything."

I said, "Oh, geez."

I said, "Well, before my marriage,

your marriage is just hanging by a thin thread."

I said, "And for my kids?"

He said, "Just listen, Randy.

I'm not saying you have to love AA more,

but AA has to be here,

because none of this down here will work."

So I started going to meetings on my Friday date,

like I said, it was July 13th, 1992.

And he's been my sponsor the whole time.

But I couldn't quite put AA where it should be.

I remember in my first month,

I missed the Wednesday night meeting.

I said, "Where were you?"

And I said, "Well, I had really good scenes.

I was at the Dodger game."

And he said, "Get the Dodger shortstop to sponsor you."

And he walked away, and so I started going.

I'll tell you AA what it did for me,

'cause I was always talking to the wrong people.

I was talking to people that wanted my best interest,

but they weren't alcoholics.

And the great thing, I'm just so simple.

The people you have to talk to

are the people that have the same disease.

And that's the one thing.

I remember one of my first meetings,

it was the big Pacific group meeting,

and there was a whole bunch of people.

I just randomly sat next to this lady,

and I was talking to her,

and she said, "How are you?"

And I just went through all this petty crap.

And just coincidentally, she was the main speaker then.

And she got up in like in her first two minutes,

so I just met a new friend, Randy,

and he's having kind of a hard time.

But four or five minutes later when she was talking,

I realized she was in the throes of cancer.

And I didn't literally do this,

but it was just like, "Oh God, what an idiot I am.

I'm telling her about my little piddly crap

where I can't quite get the fourth step right,

and I can't do this, and I just feel like a jerk."

And I couldn't say anything to her that night

because at that time the speaker would be

at the back of the room and shake everybody's hand.

But the next week I went up to her and I said,

"God, I feel like a jerk."

And she didn't hardly remember, I don't think,

but she said, "Why?"

And I said, "Because I was going through

all my little crappy things that were going on in my life,

and you have cancer, I mean really bad."

And then she said, "Well, what are we doing?"

And I said, "What do you mean, what are we doing?"

And so we were just talking, and so she looked around.

And so all these people were talking in little groups

and stuff like that, and she said,

"Well, what are all these people doing?"

I said, "Oh man, an AA quiz."

And so she said, "It's one alcoholic talking to another."

And she said, "You know, if you remember that,"

she says, "that's where you're gonna get your input,

and the people you need to share with,

the people you need to talk to.

I mean, you want to talk to your wife,

and you want to talk to your friends,

and you want to talk to whoever's close to you.

But you don't hide it.

I mean, you're not gonna be hiding anything

because they all know where you're at.

But where you're gonna get the input

is not necessarily somebody with 30 years or 40 years.

You're gonna get input from them,

but just sharing one alcoholic to another.

And I never forgot that.

And I mean, there's just things that you learn

while you're noggin.

You're not even thinking about it.

I mean, I lied so much when I was drinking.

Somebody asked what color this tie is.

I would say red, because I just lied to lie.

And because it's almost every question that was asked to me,

I had to lie, especially to my wife or to my employers.

And so one night I was at the Wednesday night meeting,

and I was sitting in the little circle,

and there was a girl that I had talked to,

and some of my old bad priorities came back in thoughts.

And remember, I was a lot younger then.

And I said something to her about,

should I get some coffee or something?

She says, "Randy, aren't you married?"

And I said, "Instead of, I couldn't cry, tell the truth."

I said, "Well, sort of."

I said, "Tell the truth."

And so on the way home with my sponsor,

I said, "Yeah, that's what happens."

So we're gonna have to work on this, Randy.

It's gonna take you a little while.

So I'll pretend like I'm you and you're her.

We'll both do the same thing.

And so I, "Okay, aren't you married?"

The answer to this is yes.

And because I lied for everything,

it's just kind of the little things that you learn

and that you become grateful for.

There was a good friend of mine, he had a bedside panel,

and I don't know if any of you know,

I don't know if they have those anymore,

but you actually go to the hospital,

you go into the alcoholic ward

and talk to different people and say, "I'm from AA,"

and you go through it.

And then the nurse came up and said,

"You better not go into that."

And that guy is a real jerk.

And so I said, "Oh, we're doing really well."

So we went in there and he said, we walked in,

"Are you from AA?"

And we said, "Yeah."

And he gave us the finger.

And he said, "Get the hell out of here, I wanna talk to you."

So he kept going and stuff.

He said, "I guess you didn't understand me."

And he gave me the finger with both hands.

And so we left.

But I was laughing when we were leaving.

And my friend said, "What are you laughing for?"

And I said, "Look at that guy.

"I mean, he's all hooked up to all these tubes

"and green is a good color.

"I mean, this tie is green

"and green is a good color for the front lawn

"and the Christmas tree.

"This guy's a great color for a human being."

And this guy was,

all of these things were, he had all of these tubes in him

and he knew he wasn't gonna live for much longer.

And I just left and I said, "God, Dad, doesn't he get it?"

And we went and had a nice lunch.

But AA by far is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

And I was kind of a slow learner.

But the key to my program and the key to me being,

like I said, sober and comfortable at the same time as you,

because like I said, I've been married 54 years.

Most of you I've never met in person.

Maybe we drank together at some point,

but I've never met before.

But you know more about me on a certain level

than my brothers do, than my wife does,

than my friends that aren't alcoholics do.

And that's the secret of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's been, I mean, there's not even a close second.

That is the best thing I ever did.

And that goal that I wanted,

sobriety and comfort at the same time.

It's not always there, but most of the time it is.

And it's thanks to people like you.

So thanks a lot.

(crosstalk)