Bill's Journey: From Early Alcohol Use to Lasting Sobriety

Good evening, everybody. My name is Bill Knox, and I am an alcoholic.

And I'd like to first thank Karen for allowing me the opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope with you this evening.

And I also want to thank my sponsor, James Cole, who is coming up on a year.

And I'm very proud to tell you what it was like, what happened and what it's like today.

We start out by saying I love Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous has truly transformed my life.

You know, I came from a very dark place in my life. You know, I'm still a liar cheating a beat.

Let me just get that out the way right now. I mean, I'm dressed up tonight, but I never want to forget where I came from or how it started.

You know, I came from two good parents that were married 10 years.

They had an OK marriage for the first 10 years, and then it got a little dicey.

They were both very young, 19 years old when they had me. I was actually born in Mexico City because my mother and father had me out of wedlock.

Now, that doesn't make me an alcoholic, but I spent the first three years of my life in Mexico City and my mother's father at that time was running a newspaper down there.

And that was where she could afford to raise me for a few years until her and my dad ultimately did tie the knot.

I grew up in Inglewood, California. I attended St. Bernard High School and I became a pretty good ballplayer, played basketball.

I was a scholarship athlete, ended up going to St. Mary's College, and my drinking probably took off graduation night from high school.

My mother lived off of Hardy and La Brea, right just north of Century Boulevard.

I used to, you know, buy all my liquor at the liquor stores on Century and the surrounding areas and top my dope on Inglewood Avenue.

And, you know, I could totally identify with what Bruce said because my story is about alcohol, but I did a lot of drugs and I stole a lot of money to get those drugs.

And I did whatever it took to get loaded because from the earliest time of my life, as Bruce had alluded to, I felt inadequate.

I never felt comfortable in my own skin.

You know, some guys wanted to be taller. I wanted to be shorter. I wanted to be slimmer. You know, I was a really good athlete. I was big, strong, agile, fast, but it seemed like the smaller guys were always getting all the girls.

And when it came to talking to girls, I mean, my tongue would be tied up like a knot, you know, I stuttered, I perspired when I was in front of them, my knees shook, and I wanted to be so like my dad.

You know, my dad was this tall, like black Omar Sharif looking guy, 6'6", you know, lean, wore impeccable suits, wore that great cologne, you know, you could smell that great flannel coming off his skin.

And he was, you know, when he walked, he just looked like a gazelle, you know, and I wanted to be like that guy.

You know, he played basketball just like me. He was a golfer, had the most beautiful golf swing you ever want to see.

And as long as I can recall, I just wanted to be like my dad, you know, and I tried to be like him. I tried to mimic him, but I could never be like him.

Now, ironically, his father was 5'10". You know, my dad's 6'6", but my grandfather was 5'10". Louisiana man, Pullman Porter, grew up in the deep south during the height of segregation, was born shortly after Emancipation Proclamation and had a third grade education.

Pet his grass, trimmed his hedges, worked around his house till he was 90 years old, drank ancient age and gin and vodka and chased him with Kool-Aid.

And I love spending the weekends with my grandfather because my grandfather did a lot of exciting things. He'd kill chickens.

Sorry, James raised his chickens, but my grandfather, I'm sorry, James, but he would, you know, kill these chickens, skin them and then we, you know, have them for dinner.

And, you know, and afterwards, you know, we'd sit under this tree. He lived on 61st and Burdon and he'd give me a sip of his drink.

And I just remember the first time I ingested that ancient age, it was, I can't remember if it was whiskey or what kind of liquor it was, but I just remember how much it burned going down.

It just burned going down my throat. And I remember just, you know, spitting it out and my eyes were watering and my nose was running and I was thinking to myself, how do people drink this stuff?

And, you know what, you know, I don't get it, you know, but I didn't want my grandfather or my dad, for that matter, to think I was weak.

So I continue to every time they offered me a little sip of something, I take that sip, you know, and they weren't forcing it down my throat.

But I wanted to be like them so bad, you know, I wanted to be like my cousin who drank. And one day my grandfather gave me some, I think it was some vodka and I took a couple of sips of that.

And all of a sudden something changed inside of me. All of a sudden my feet didn't seem so big. All of a sudden I wasn't stuttering.

Everything was clear. It was like what Bruce was saying, that hole closed up. Those hot lights went down and the cool lights went up.

And I found the magic elixir. I figured out what was wrong with me. Nobody had given me this stuff.

Now that I had this stuff, now I have the cure-all. I can talk to every girl I see with confidence.

I never had a problem on the court. I was a very gifted athlete, but that was like the only game I had as far as conversation.

And that liquor and those drugs just did it for me. And it started on recreation, you know, at my graduation party.

Somebody brought me some weed. I smoked that joint. I think they called it indica at that time or the chronic, you know.

And I just remember being so high and I couldn't dance. But that night I could do everything. I could pop lock. I could break dance.

You know, I could tango. I mean, I could do absolutely anything and everything that night because I had just felt totally uninhibited.

And this is what I had been missing my whole life. Now, I was raised Catholic. My father's mother was a Catholic woman.

Raised me at St. John Evangelist in Inglewood or no, St. John's on 60th and Crenshaw.

And, you know, I just remember going to church with her all the time and looking up at those stained glass windows and thinking to myself,

God, I feel very spiritual, you know, and I see Jesus carrying the cross and all those stained glass windows, biblical scenarios.

And I'm thinking to myself, I just feel I'm supposed to feel or how everybody else looks.

There was such great reverence in the in the church. And I just didn't feel that reverence.

You know, the thing that was going through my mind was this poet, this beautiful girl that was standing in front of me and my hormones just raging out of control.

And I just I had guilt and remorse because of it, because I'm thinking to myself, I shouldn't feel like this.

I shouldn't feel like like out of control like this.

And, you know, my grandmother would impart all these sayings, you know, on me and recite the Ten Commandments and, you know, Psalms 91.

You know, she'd have all these sayings that she would impart on me.

And and she was a God fearing woman, you know, one of the most God free women I have ever known.

You know, she was a seamstress. So we would go to her house on the weekend and she would be in the back sewing.

She had that old Singer machine and with the pedal. And, you know, I was sneak and she would make these rum cakes.

And, you know, if you know anything about these Louisiana rum cakes, what they do is they just keep pouring alcohol all year after year.

They just sit. And, you know, I'm hungry all the time. I mean, you know, I want to eat all the time.

And she had this tin can canister up in the cupboard and I would have to sneak because, you know, you know, back in those days, you know, those those those that generation.

You couldn't turn their lights on too long because then you were running their bill up.

And and then when you took a they'd have this big kettle of gumbo and you get one bowl of gumbo because there were seven or eight other family members that had to come over and share the gumbo.

And and it was like, you know, all you need is one boy. Don't be so greedy.

And I'm I'm hungry like all the time. I could eat I could eat a cow, you know.

And, you know, so I start sneaking those cookies up in the canister, you know, because, you know, I'm I'm a severe alcoholic.

You know, when we sit down to eat, I want mine, I want yours and I want everybody else's that they're leaving behind.

I just that's that's the way I'm a taker and I'll do anything to take, you know, and, you know, I'll smile in your face and I'll you know, I'll steal your wallet.

You know, if it means me getting my bottom line, which is getting high and getting low.

And I live my life like that for so long. But I was a clean cut kid.

I oh, so anyway, my grandmother would be back there and she'd be she'd be she'd be, you know, wheeling that pedal. And as soon as that I'd hear that that that pedal go on.

I would make my way for the cookie jar because, see, when I opened that tin can up, she could hear me.

But when she had that that foot on her on that pedal, I could reach in there, get as many cookies as I wanted, and then go back in the room and just and just scarf and hoard that food.

And sometimes she'd catch me and I'd see that shoe flying around the corner.

It was like a boomerang and she'd hit me upside my head, you know, because she knew me, you know, but she loved me anyway.

She she she knew that I was, you know, you know, a lie and cheat and a thief.

But she she would tell me, she said, William, one day, you know, straighten up and fly right, you know, and I believe that.

But I didn't know when that was. Anyway, long story short, I I graduated from high school and I got a scholarship to St. Mary's College up in Northern California.

Where I played for the Gales, you know, I played Division one men's basketball at a very high level from 81 through 85.

During that time, I was introduced to all those kids up in Contra Costa County near San Francisco, and they started turning me on to some of the best weed.

I got all that Humboldt County weed, all the best alcohol you can drink. And all the weed and the and the cocaine did was allowed me to drink longer.

But, you know, I started, you know, you know, because these kids are enamored by me because, you know, I'm an athlete.

I'm coming in and, you know, I'm one of these guys that's supposed to save the program and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And and I had the best of intentions. I came in, I was in shape. I was ready to play, play against all the greats.

You know, John Stockton, Charles Barkley played against Magic Johnson over the over the summer.

You know, everybody but Michael Jordan, you know, so I've seen every type of basketball athlete imagine.

And, you know, I left L.A. very decorated athlete, all American, but came back as a highly disappointed son and athlete.

I remember my senior year, you know, just like crying because I just pissed away this grandiose career.

And I remember being at home in the summer and I ended up getting a phone call from a guy who asked me if I wanted to go play down in South America.

And I ended up playing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I played in Argentina for two years.

And it was the best time of my life. I got a chance to reinvigorate my career.

I continued to drink because they had some really good beer down there.

But I did not use any dope because I had heard that they arrested several guys who had been smoking pot doing cocaine.

So I managed to elude the law enforcement in South America.

And it kind of scared the crap out of me because, you know, all those guys were walking around downtown with AK-47s.

A little different modus operandi down there than it is here in the States.

You know, they don't play down there, but I continue to drink and I would drink myself into a drunken stupor every night.

And that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization that you feel because you've made you've had all this resolve and you've made all these promises to yourself.

And for whatever reason, you know, I could not stay so I could not.

My willpower was not enough, but I didn't know about you people.

I had no idea that you people existed back then, you know, and I remember walking by this newsstand.

And I saw the cover of Time magazine and there was this really, really great basketball player named Len Bias who had just signed this major contract with the Boston Celtics back in like 1985, 86.

And he signed a big contract with Rebate simultaneously for like seven million dollars.

And then there was a coffin in the corner of the magazine and the headline said Death of a Dream.

This guy had signed this contract and then the next day he obeyed on a big rock of cocaine.

You know, now you think that would have detoured me or scared me.

It did.

It jolted me for a minute, you know, but I did not think that I was that severe.

First of all, I wouldn't sign a contract that big, so it never happened to me.

So I ended up I ended up finishing my career in Argentina, had a great career, averaged about 46 points a game, had an 87 point game down there.

I mean, I was a pretty decent athlete at that time and I probably could have been a better athlete if I could have just stayed off the blues and the sauce.

But like I said, I didn't know about you people.

I didn't have a sponsor.

I didn't have an AA Big Brother.

Well, as luck would have it, I did manage to learn the language.

I do speak Spanish, Castilian Spanish fluently.

And, you know, I had this idea, you know, when I came back to the States, you know, I could probably get myself a good job since I'm bilingual now, but I didn't know what I was going to do.

And, you know, it's interesting, you know, I so identify with Bruce's talk because my dad was in the mortgage business and he said, why don't you get in real estate?

You know, it's a great business, you know, it gives you the freedom and liberty to do what you want to do.

It's a great business for athletes, you know, and I was like, yeah, you know, and I'm and I'm seeing all these guys driving Mercedes and BMWs and, you know, making all this money and dressing in Brooks Brothers suits.

And I'm like, yeah, that's who I'm going to be.

I'm going to be a real estate tycoon, you know.

And but I had one little caveat that kind of prevented me from success.

I want to get out of bed every day.

And when you're doing real estate, you got to get out of bed.

You see, I would take these jobs.

I'd stay on these jobs for a minute, these temp jobs.

And, you know, until they found me out, I get there late, leave early, take these long lunches and then they fire me.

I file for unemployment.

All my unemployment checks would go to, you know, to to booze and drugs.

And and that cycle just continued for 10 years after my basketball career in Argentina.

And I just remember getting to a point because I was now living in my mother's garage conversion in the back of her house.

And, you know, she came to me one day and she said, you know, baby, I hope I'm not coming to identify you in the morgue with a toe tack because that's where you go.

Because I was getting in fights now.

I was stealing more.

You know, I was in and out of, you know, houses of ill repute, if you know what I mean.

I just didn't care.

I let my parents go and I and I did not know what to do.

And my whole family, even my brother and sister, everybody's yelling at me, what's wrong with you?

You know, why can't you why can't you straighten up?

You were all you were this and that in high school, blah, blah, blah.

Look at you. You're a bum now.

And I absolutely felt like a bum.

And I got comfortable with being a bum.

I absolutely did, you know, because I didn't think a guy of my type was capable of putting together a productive day.

I just I just give it up.

I didn't know what to do because I always felt inadequate, always felt less than you.

Like Bruce said, I judged your outsides by my insides.

If you look like if you looked like you had it all together, it just made me feel less and less and less.

Even if you did, I didn't know that nothing is as it seems today.

You know, it's all perception.

I had no idea.

You know, that's that's I'm going to get to that short.

But I just had so many defects of character that I didn't know how to address.

So luck would happen.

I ended up taking a temporary job at First Nationwide Bank.

Yep. In near the airport.

And I was working for this guy by the name of Tim Krueger.

And I know Marty real well.

Me and Marty are like this.

Yeah, I've seen you think I've seen you around the group.

Yeah, no, no.

But anyway, I was working for Tim.

And again, I was getting to work late, even early.

And Tim's a successful loan officer.

He's doing these, you know, it's a top notch guy.

And, you know, I'm handling his files and he never got angry with me.

But one day he called me into his office and he says, he says, Hey, Bill, why don't you come talk to me for a second?

So I go in there and he says, you know, I know this, you know, you're getting to work, you know, like almost an hour late.

You're leaving early and, you know, you're handling my files.

And, you know, I have family to feed.

And, you know, it's like, I don't want to let you go before I give you a chance to explain yourself.

And I just said, you know, I don't know what made me open up to this guy.

I had no idea what made me open up to this guy.

And I said, Tim, he said, wait, he says, before you go on, he says, you're Bill Knox that played at St. Bernard High School.

And I said, yeah.

He said, you were a pretty good ball player.

I remember you.

I said, oh, really?

You know, and he says, yeah.

He says, you were in all the headlines, all newspapers, blah, blah, blah.

I remember you, you know, and, you know, and now all of a sudden I'm thinking, oh, well, you know, I recognize the skills, you know.

And he goes, but you know what?

That doesn't mean a jack to me.

That's just another tale of wasted youth.

And man, did he stick a pin in my balloon and just deflate me.

This guy knew exactly what to do.

He knew what was going on.

He smelled the alcohol on my breath, smelled the pot, you know, because I was out in the parking lot getting high, coming back, trying to work, you know.

And, you know, the mortgage business, you know, it's a lot of rules, a lot of regulations, a lot of numbers, a lot of compliance.

I mean, you have to be on your game every day because you're handling millions and millions and millions of people's assets, you know, and you have to be on point when you're there.

And I'm processing loans.

That means I'm the point of contact for his underwriters.

So when he gives me a loan, I have to, you know, go through all the findings of that loan and to determine whether or not his clients qualify for that loan.

And every single loan that I did looked like crap for him.

I mean, everything he sent me was, you know, because they give you a stacking order of all the things that you need, all your financials, all your assets, credit and the collateral, blah, blah, blah, blah, just this whole laundry list of stuff you need.

And I just could not answer the bill every day.

And he said, he goes, man, look, what's up with you?

You took this job.

You managed to get a foot in the door.

So you have some intelligence.

What's going on?

You wouldn't have no drinking problems.

And I don't know what, why I opened up to this guy.

But I said, yeah, I do too.

Can't stay so no matter how hard I try.

And every day I wake up with the same result.

Today, I'm going to get myself together.

By five o'clock, I'm totally inebriated, you know, that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization, you know, just day in, day out.

I stole so much money from him, snuck so much money out, popped all her coins, did all kind of stuff that I'm so ashamed, you know, and this woman just loved me.

Had multiple surgeries, aneurysm, the elective surgeries, came back from the dead, I don't know how many times, this woman probably died 100 times.

And I kept trying to send her unintentionally to an early grave.

I was stressing her out, but she continued to love me.

She continues to love me to this day.

He said, you want to meet me somewhere?

I said, sure, I thought he was going to take me to dinner.

We ended up going to Emerson Middle School, Westchester.

I think that was the school.

And there I met my sponsor.

They had an AA basketball team.

The Pacific League had a basketball team.

There were certain rules for me.

They knew who I was.

They knew what my skills were as far as sports religion.

They didn't care.

What they wanted me to learn how to do was be a team player.

It wasn't about winning.

It was about me being a team player.

It was about me learning how to be a worker among workers in a minimum place.

And it was hard for me because I had this gigantic ego.

We all know ego stands for edging down.

I had this huge ego, and it had to be deflated.

And I met my sponsor.

And he has remained my sponsor.

And my surviving date is July 22nd, 1996, which makes me over 26 years old.

And he has a sponsor.

And his sponsor is Tim Creek.

He was my Eskimo.

His sponsor before Tim was Clancy's.

And I remember showing up at Clancy's office several times downtown.

One time, the first time, I got there a minute late.

And he told me to get your ass out of here.

Excuse me.

I'm not supposed to trust you.

These are Clancy's words now.

And the next day, I was 15, 20 minutes early.

And he learned how to respect them.

And the first talk I ever had, it blew my mind.

He said, I drove all the way down there.

Because I'm thinking this man is God.

And he was a powerful man.

I learned a lot from Clancy.

I went to his office.

And I sat down.

He goes, OK, I got some advice for you.

And I leaned in, listening, and I said, I left.

But today, I know what he meant by that.

I get it.

See, Clancy talks about the difference between an alcoholic and somebody

who suffers from alcoholism.

And there is a fundamental difference.

See, somebody who suffers from-- thank you-- from alcoholism

can solve their problem by not drinking any.

Or somebody who has an alcohol problem can solve their problem

by not drinking alcohol.

Somebody who suffers from alcoholism as a living being, and that's what I had.

I'm so glad I know what's wrong with me today.

I have an allergy to the body and it's such another mind.

I've worked the steps.

I work the steps with my Sponcys.

But it's not just working the steps.

My sponsor informs me all the time.

We're working the steps every day.

It's not just sitting down with a Sponcy and going through steps 1 through 12.

When you walk through these rooms, you're working steps 1 through 6

by your action.

You see, I had to get my way into good thinking as opposed

to thinking my way into good action.

Thinking my way into good action got me in a lot of trouble

because the devil's mind--

I don't mind the devil's workshop.

Steps 7 through 12 are what kept me here.

Steps 1 and steps 11 to me are synonymous with each other

because I had to admit to my innermost self who I was

and what my problem was.

Step 11 gave me that conscious contact

that I needed to guide my understanding today.

And I could identify-- even though this is chapter 5 today,

I could identify with chapter 4, the agnostics and the atheists.

You see, I was raised as a Catholic.

But there was a point where I really doubted my religion

and my spirituality.

And today, it's a matter of the heart.

I don't argue about what I believe.

I don't argue about politics.

I don't argue with people because it's

more important that I'm comfortable than right.

Right will get you killed.

I want to be comfortable.

Sometimes I let people just win arguments

for the sake of my emotional and mental health

because I don't need to know everything.

This is where the answers are for me.

In these rooms, these steps, these steps

are to the individual.

Those traditions are to the group.

The group must exist or I will die.

And then encompassing that are the concepts.

So my sponsors turned me on to the 36 concepts

because it all works like the link on a chain.

Everything has to be in unison.

And today, I'm still the same guy.

That fool is still in here.

He still lives in here.

I don't have to act on him anymore.

Today, I get to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I get to reach my hand out.

I'm not the message, but I am a messenger.

And my life is wonderful today.

I spent it with my mother.

I paid her back.

I've made restitution with her.

I've made a lot of living amends.

I have three beautiful sons that I've raised.

I've been active in their life.

They've never seen their dad loaded.

My cup runneth open.

And I have everyone in this room to thank as a result of that

because without you people, I never--

my life would have taken a turn for the worse.

And I want to thank you for allowing

me to share my experience, strength, and hope with you.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]