Kirk's Journey: From Early Loss to Sobriety and Community

- My name is Kirk West, I'm an alcoholic.

Thank you to Ben for asking me out

to participate in my own sobriety,

but apparently he's asking everybody that I know

that 15 guys have come before me.

So what does that tell you?

Ish is a real kind and gentle soul.

I met him when he first got sober at the USRI meeting,

was leading the meeting the night that he showed up.

It's a problem in discussion meeting.

And I could tell he had a problem.

And he's still, as you can tell, got a few now.

And I called on him and he shared at that time

from the heart 'cause he was hurting.

And that was real genuine to me.

And he's always considerate of me

and everybody in the group.

And so I'm honored to have him as a friend

and glad that he's leading this meeting.

You know, it's 2024 and I have all the highfalutin phones

and computers and all that stuff.

I just know how to work them.

And I punched in the wrong address to this meeting hall,

which I've been at a hundred times,

not a hundred, a few times, maybe twice.

And the thing's taking me off the camera bill

and I call Ish and I said,

"Hey, can you text me the address?"

And he texted to me.

And he said, "I'm pissed off at the world.

It's not my fault.

I'm angry at myself 'cause I feel real stupid."

And in my life, I always felt stupid.

So I drank, I didn't feel so stupid when I was drunk.

Acted stupid.

And so I said, "I need to calm down

because now I'm hitting every light to get here

and I don't wanna be late

'cause you should be here a half hour ahead."

'Cause I was trained pretty well.

And the lights are hitting,

this person's going slow and it's raining.

So I push on the Beatles.

I grew up with the Beatles and I push on their station

and nowhere man is playing.

And I feel like a nowhere man.

So at the top of my lungs, I'm singing in my car

and I feel better and I arrive.

I was at Ish and I and a bunch of us

were at the sobriety capital of the world last night

in India.

I know it's sobriety capital of the world

'cause they have a sign that says sobriety capital of the world

and anything that's on the internet

or on a sign has gotta be true.

So, but we had a great time.

49 of us, 49 or 39?

Maybe 39 went from some meetings that we go to

and all met there and all got to speak for a minute

in order of sobriety.

And it's, in my heart, I feel as a human being today

and I never felt that way, I'm not strong.

My sobriety date is July 23rd, 1984.

My sponsor is Tom B.

And my home group is USR Men's Recovery.

I mean, men's stay on Thursday night.

And I have a kinship, I think, or a familiarity

or a relationship with this group here about 36 years ago.

My sponsor, Chuck A., we sat in his living room

and we decided we were gonna start a meeting in a group.

And I was sitting there and we were going

around the living room with a guy named Mike Kelly.

And I don't know if Mike Kelly's still alive, I don't know.

He said, we were trying to come up with a name

and he said, "What about license session?"

And I find it very offensive when you guys say Lyft,

but that's okay, that's me, I'm kinda weird that way.

But anyway, and I thought, what a great name for a meeting.

To just give you an idea how I drank,

when I was a youth, my mother passed away

in my father's bed when I was six months old.

Now, I don't think that adversely affected me at that time,

but I know it did throughout life

and that's not why I drank.

I know it really adversely affected my father.

And I knew my father could never get in touch

with his emotions.

And because of that, I don't think, you know,

I don't think that really matters.

But my father, I never,

the house that we lived in was never good enough.

The clothes that they put on me were never nice enough.

The cars that they drove were not cool enough.

And if I saw a cool guy at school, I wanted to be that guy.

I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what to do.

And I got kicked out of church, what's it called?

Sunday school, first time I ever went.

I got kicked out 'cause I was talking.

We moved around a lot as a kid and I hated that.

'Cause you always gotta reform

whatever you think your personality is

at each place that you end up.

And I found it real quickly that if I was the funny man

or I caused problems and all the attention was on me,

I got some attention, whether it was negative or positive.

And we moved around a lot.

I didn't like that.

I discovered, we ended up in Granada Hills, California

when I was about 14, well, I was in 12.

But when I was 14, I think it was the first time

that I ever got drunk.

We had some concert, we were drinking Red Mountain wine.

My parents were out of town.

I woke up in the front yard next to a pile

of regurgitated Tommy's Burgers.

And I thought, I'm just not gonna drink

that Red Mountain wine anymore.

Now, I heard a guy speak yesterday.

So the next day I thought, well, I can't wait till I do it.

I never thought about that.

But none of that stuff, none of that stuff I said,

well, you shouldn't do pot, you shouldn't drink under it.

It never occurred to me because I didn't like it in school

because I was embarrassed if I couldn't answer the question.

I played sports a lot, but I would never,

if I couldn't figure it out in about two minutes,

I wouldn't do it because I didn't want,

I always thought that the way,

selfish and self-centered evolves in my head a lot

'cause that's what I am.

A lot of us are that way.

And I just thought that everybody would be watching me.

I was talking on issue.

I go, no one's gonna pay attention.

You won't remember what I say.

Well, there's no quizzes later.

I'm not gonna say, what did I say?

That's how it is.

We're all self-absorbed.

And so anyway, when I discovered alcohol, it didn't matter.

I felt five foot nine instead of five foot six.

I was handsome.

I could dance.

I could talk.

I love, it's funny, I moved around a lot as a kid.

Minute I got out of high school, I moved to Seattle.

I'm from Seattle and started going to college there

and got into the University of Washington,

which surprised me.

I went two years to junior college when my father got me,

my brother got me, my mother got me.

I put in an application that had let me in.

At this time, I was living with a guy

that was importing green stuff in blocks from Mexico,

sailing it up.

And he had this white powder that looked like baby powder.

So I was kind of into that.

And in fact, he was in the import-export business.

He was more involved in the import, not the export.

It's a side show there.

So anyway, so in fact, the feds knocked on the door

when I was there one day.

And they said, "Is the guy that owns the house here?"

And I said, "No, no, he's not."

So they go, "Well, 10 minutes later, I get a call from him."

And a couple of days later,

I just got back from Southern California,

had a nice tan orange yellow shirt with a sunflower.

I mean, it was really goofy with, you know.

So I had to go speak before a federal grand jury

about what was going on.

And I lied.

When I was 14, my mother caught me smoking pot.

She didn't know what to do.

She sent me to a Freudian psychiatrist.

And I learned real quick that if I would tell him

what he wanted to hear, he would leave me alone.

And when I started to go to him,

I smoked pot and drank a little bit.

When I left, eight months later,

I was snorting Coke, sniffing glue, gasoline,

all kind of crazy stuff.

And he brought my parents in.

My dad was a suit and tie guy, a lawyer sitting there.

"Okay, Mr. and Mrs. West, he's cured."

And that, I said, "Well, that's pretty cool."

My parents were enablers too.

So anyway, I kind of drank my, I got arrested in Seattle.

I had a great job a girlfriend of mine had got for me.

And I lost it because I was a drunk.

I didn't know it at the time, but that's why I lost it.

And I used up everything there.

I got arrested there.

And I came back to Southern California

and moved in with mommy and daddy, you know.

I asked my, my father would do things like,

'cause we were both,

the thing that my father and I spoke about

were politics and sports.

And he was, he had a contrary view in politics

and he loved sports the way I did.

And he would give me articles about athletes

that were having trouble with booze

and say, "Maybe you should read this."

But he never talked to me about it.

They were classic enablers.

And I lived there and I was on my mother.

My mother was, my mother was handing out sandwiches,

my stepmother, but I never was allowed to call her that.

She wasn't.

She was handing out sandwiches over in Silmon

before it became the cool thing to do.

'Cause she was just a giver.

And I was on her list.

I was the number one person on her prayer list.

And I saw that and I laughed about it.

But I didn't know what alcoholism was.

I did know that I kind of drank more than my friends.

And there were times when I would quit

and I would reward myself six months later.

I go, "Well, I really don't have a problem."

And then I would go out and I would drink again.

And one time I drove my car in blackout

into a guy's living room.

Another time I was driving from Rinaldi down Balboa

on a Saturday in a blackout.

And I pulled into the bar because that's what happened.

You kind of come to.

And two cops that appeared to be about nine foot four

were body slamming me off the top of the car.

And they took me to jail over at Devonshire.

And my buddy who's died of this disease,

but he came in, he was high on martinis and bailed me out.

Where's Kirk?

I'm here to pick him up.

And back then they would allow that.

So I wasn't real good with booze.

But it was always curious to me how I would quit drinking.

I was brought up in the Episcopal faith

and my brother was an Episcopal priest.

And I always thought it was weird

that he would be the acolyte and walk.

And my dad would say, "Open your mouth when you sing."

I just hated being at church.

I hated everything about it.

So when I would give up drinking for the time being,

I would never talk to God.

I would just on my own will quit.

And then six months later, three months later,

I'd get drunk again.

And my mother was gonna have the prayer group at her house.

I just lived with mommy and daddy.

I was a grownup.

That's why I went to cook.

I was gonna be a grownup.

I never knew how to be a,

I didn't know how to be a grownup.

I didn't know how to do any of this stuff.

And she asked me, she goes,

"Can you please take it easy tonight?

The prayer group's coming over tomorrow.

I'd like you out of the house."

How dare you?

I'm not paying rent.

She's fixing me the food I want, but how dare you?

So I went out and tied my lawn and came home

and she just kind of made a lot of noise.

And then I left and got my little beat up 65 Volkswagen

and drove to the Cork and Bib liquor store

and got a recycler and a six pack of beer.

'Cause after all I'm hurting, you know.

I was a guy that drank to go out to drink.

I was a guy that drank to come over to your house

to talk to you.

When I lived at my parents' house, I was getting in shape.

I worked at this lumber yard.

I smoked cigarettes.

I'd go run six miles by the school that they lived at,

get a bottle of booze, put it in my knapsack, bring it home.

I couldn't talk to my mom and dad.

So I'd go in my room and get hammered and come out.

"Hey, what's for dinner, mom?"

Yeah, it was out there.

And so I got this recycler and there was an ad for somebody.

They needed a caretaker at the spawn ranch.

I didn't know it at the time.

So I went up, met with the lady.

She said, "Do you know anything about horses?"

Remember I told you I'm a pretty good liar.

My psychiatrist taught me how to lie.

My parents believed it.

So I said, "Oh yeah, I love horses."

I was afraid of them.

So she hired me to live in a 38 by eight foot trailer

on 56 acres to take care of 28 horses.

And about, I don't know, we probably had 15, 20 dogs

at the time and some cows.

I never done any of that stuff.

And she, oh, she did ask me, "Do you ever drink?"

I go, "On occasion, I might have, on occasion."

'Cause her husband was a good one.

Went home and reported to my mommy and daddy

that I was moving out.

I'm a big boy now, I'm 28 years old.

They pack up, they take two trips to the car

with all my belongings.

Put them in the front seat of my Volkswagen.

And I had, I was fascinated by the Manson family.

I had a dog here 'cause I'd read before

Vincent Bugliosi's novel about, you know,

he's the one that got made sure that Manson went to prison

and the book helped her skelter.

So I put that in my pocket and went up

and I had a bottle of wine.

And we looked over at my refrigerator,

which was an old Coke, you know, Coke machine.

That was my refrigerator.

Lit up a doobie and got some wine.

I've got it made.

'Cause I didn't care.

My friends were buying houses.

My friends were getting married.

My friends were having kids.

I didn't care.

This is my life.

You know, look at this freedom I had.

And I lived up there for four years drunk

and I would quit again.

I played golf with a buddy of mine

and I would tell this guy, I'd say,

as we're sitting there getting ready to tea off,

I'm firing up a doobie.

He goes, "I ain't not drinking anymore, it's great."

And I would go to parties and people,

"Oh, you're not drinking, that's great.

Oh, that's great."

And I go, "Yeah, that's great."

But inside, I felt like I just didn't,

I felt like nothing.

I wanted to drink.

And I'd go, "Yeah, but I think there's something

that I need to do more than just quitting.

I think that there's something."

So I knew all along that I wouldn't do this thing

the right way.

I ended up going to a psychiatrist and she told me,

and thank you, welcome, Ryan.

And thank you for reading that.

That's hard to do when you're new.

It is, and you did a great job because she took me,

she told me to go to some meetings.

So I went to some meetings.

It was at de Young's towing over up top

off Sherman Way in Topanga.

And that's the first meeting I went to.

And I went drunk and the next week I went to,

she goes, "Did you go to the meeting?"

I go, "Yeah, I was hammered."

She goes, "I didn't tell you you couldn't drink,

but you should, you know, you probably shouldn't."

And I continued to go.

And I remember the first time I said, "I'm an alcoholic."

And the only other meeting I'd really been to,

I had this, a buddy of mine's wife at my house

staying for a while.

And she had to go to AA meeting.

And I went to one with her at the Sons of Norway

and I was hammered.

'Cause I had to get hammered to communicate like this.

And I thought, because you know, now I know everything

and I'm talking to the guys again.

We get out of the meeting, "That's great, not a big deal."

I go, "It's a nice hammer."

So anyway, so this therapist finally told me,

she says, "You know, you fire guns up there?"

And I says, "Yeah, I shoot at stuff."

And I would shoot at people, you know,

people up on the Santa Susana Pass.

So if you ever have a bullet hole from 40 years ago,

it's probably me.

She said, "You can't do that.

You're jeopardizing my license."

And that didn't make sense.

And the next week she goes, "What'd you do?"

I said, "A buddy of mine came up and we shot squirrels

and you know, all the varmints up there."

She goes, "I can't see any."

I said, "Why?"

She goes, "'Cause you jeopardized my license, I told you that."

And one more time, see, it was never my fault.

It was yours, nevermind.

And I ended up going to a place

called the Grandview Foundation in Pasadena.

And I went for 30 days.

The first night I was there, I was in my room by myself,

alone and lonely, and I cried myself to sleep.

And then I started doing the deal.

And then about four or five days into it,

when the cobwebs cleared, I was arguing with them about,

"This can't, what do you mean, disease?

It doesn't make any sense to me

'cause I'm a very argumentative person."

And I finished there and I went back into that ranch.

30 days, went back up to that ranch.

I was doing what I was doing.

I cleaned the dog poop and we didn't have as many horses.

We sold them to some guy in South America or something.

We had a lot of dogs.

We had Neapolitan Mastiffs, Quisans, and Rottweilers,

very expensive animals.

And I ran with them.

They were my buddies.

Those are the people I hung around with.

The way I made money, I've been a sports official

in the San Fernando Valley for 40 years.

So 39, I've been sober 39.

So one year I was hammered all the time

doing your kids' games or whatever.

So, and I was up at that ranch and I was there for 30 days

and I wasn't drinking, wasn't smoking pot,

wasn't snorkeling coke, wasn't taking pills.

And I felt like crap.

And I said, "It didn't make sense, I'm sober now."

And a light bulb went off in my head and I said,

"Yeah, they say you should probably go to some meetings."

I jumped in my car and went down to the Valley Club

where I was over by the college inn.

And I walked in and I met a man, sat down.

He had Marlboro cigarettes.

I didn't have any at the time.

I sat down and talked to him.

And the conversation that we had was so comfortable.

And we talked and talked and I bumped cigarettes

and we sat outside of that meeting and talked.

And he said, "Kirk, you know, you never have to be alone

again ever in your life unless you choose to."

And I said, "Okay."

And I thought, "Well, you don't get it.

I'm a loner, that's romantic."

And we started going to meetings.

And the first meeting I went to was the Sons of Norway.

And I walked in and the guy greeted me and says,

"I wish I knew who I was, we might've known."

I don't know.

And I shake his hand and I come back the next week

and he goes, "Hey Kirk, how are you doing?"

And for the first time in my life, for many, many years,

I felt like somebody really cared.

And it made a lot of sense to me.

So we started this journey of, you know, like all of you,

I'm not gonna tell you anything you guys haven't heard here.

You read the big book from cover to cover.

You do the steps.

You know, I do the steps the same way

with guys I sponsor now.

And go to 90 meetings in 90 days.

You gotta have 90, all the commitments.

And I said, "Yeah."

And I remember I told you I was a liar

and I've been involved in sports.

And I got a call on a Sunday night to work this final

in this Pop Warner football game, which was a big deal.

So I thought, and I went and saw Chuck at the meeting

on Monday and he goes, "So how was your meeting last night?"

I would go to the Valley Club.

It's great, great.

Who was the speaker?

Who was the speaker?

I go, "Well."

And I'm not a chauvinist, but I said to him,

I was a woman, so I wasn't interested.

And he goes, "Oh, really?"

I go, "Yeah, what'd you do last night?"

He goes, "I spoke at the Valley Club."

And now I'm from the old school and he is in my face.

And I'm not gonna use the words that he used,

but everything that he was saying to me was right.

You're a liar, you're a cheat, you're this, you're that.

And I said, and I couldn't, I couldn't not say you.

And then this guy stands straight up,

he was smoking pommels, he stands straight up,

two years in sobriety, grabs his chest

and hits the deck and dies right there.

We tried to revive him and all that stuff.

And they came and they said he was dead

the minute he hit the ground.

And I'm thinking, well, at least this guy's

not gonna be giving me any more grief.

And as soon as they track him out, he's right there

and he goes, "We're gonna talk about this."

Valuable lesson about who I was that I could finally admit.

I trusted that man implicitly.

I trusted him and told him every deep dark secret I had

and regurgitated it in my fifth step.

And there are things in there that I shared with him

and with God that are still mine, but I regurgitated him,

but I trusted him and that's important.

And the irony is that he couldn't continue

to do what he was doing and walk the walk and he died drunk.

There were so many episodes that I saw people die

in this program that I believe what it said.

You know, I asked people, I asked a guy last night,

did I tell you guys I was at the sober capital

of the world last night and I asked this guy, he came back.

He goes, "Yeah, I'm back."

I go, "Well," I said, "Well, how was it out there?

Did it get any better?"

He goes, "No, it never does."

And he's trying it again.

I've had one sobriety and that's all I want to have.

I got married in this program.

Chuck was my best man.

Sandy, his wife, was my wife's maid of honor.

Sandy ended up marrying after Chuck passed,

a guy named Tom who dated my wife.

I mean, it's kind of crazy.

Not while she was my wife, at least I don't think so.

I mean, we were separated for a while,

so anything could happen, I don't know.

But anyway, I had a son.

I have a son who's 34 years old

and never had to see me drunk

and understands this program through life lessons

I've taught him somehow better than I do sometimes.

And he's estranged from my wife

because she doesn't like the fact that he married a woman

that's seven years older than he is.

I guess mothers that are really like the woman

that the only son marries.

I guess that's the way it is.

Here's the important part of this deal.

I got busy.

I asked Chuck to not be my sponsor anymore.

He chased me out of his house,

a place where I had butt prints in his seats

'cause I was there all the time

'cause I didn't know how to live life.

We got wedding gifts and my wife took them back

and I go, "Can you do that stuff?"

I didn't know you could do that.

So anything that I had to ask him,

I would ask him about love, about this, about that.

And I got another sponsor

'cause I thought that he was in the movie industry

and I thought, well, he could probably get me

in the movie industry.

And he wasn't a good sponsor 'cause he was too busy.

And then about 15 years later, I was at a meeting

and he was there with a coat and tie.

I go, "Oh, he's probably gonna take a cake."

Or he's probably speaking.

He has great talk, probably speaking.

Well, he wasn't.

He was taking a cake for one year.

And that was another indication that this thing,

what it says in that book

about this being a progressive disease is true.

I believe that.

I don't understand sometimes

why people don't believe that.

I just don't, but that's me.

But then I asked a guy who was a football coach at Crespi

and he sponsored me for a while

and I started going to meetings out in the Gora.

I gotta tell you that life's in session, man.

I know you guys went to that.

That men's stag meeting started at my house.

Did you know that?

There were 12 people there.

Disciples, I call them.

(laughing)

But anyway, that doesn't mean I think I was,

you know, that's not what I'm saying.

But anyway, so then here's the crusher for this deal

that's important for you to listen to and anybody else.

I went, I sponsored myself for about 17 years.

I didn't go to meetings.

I came by life's in session one night

and I had 17 years of sobriety.

I have a regret.

I have a really good friend who says never reminisce

with regret and that's true.

But I regret that I stopped going to life's, bless you.

I used to sit right there.

I had my seats, you know, how we do that?

Anyway, I stopped going and I went back.

I was having a bad day and I went back and I walked up

and someone goes, "Hey, how you doing?

"What are you doing?

"How you doing?"

You know, like you guys, we do.

I go, "Hey, fine."

He goes, "How long have you been sober?"

I go, "17 years."

He goes, "Oh, okay."

And now he's off to the next guy.

I go, "What are you doing?

"You didn't break.

"Chop liver here.

"I might be dying inside."

17 years I did that, but I always answered phones

from central office, go to the office.

I had friends that had channels at Wayside.

A buddy of mine came to me,

he's like a baseball umpire buddy of mine, dear friend.

And he said, "Will you talk to me?

"Would you go out to dinner?

"My son just got arrested for drunk driving."

I said, "Yeah."

And we went, had dinner.

I was impressed with his son

'cause he told the truth, I could tell.

And we started going to meetings

and I take him to meetings and I didn't go to meetings,

but I would take him.

I knew how to fake it and I felt like such a hypocrite.

I felt like such a hypocrite.

And, but what I learned in life's in session

and what you guys learn in quality of life

held me in good stead.

I never, in all those 17 years,

never once thought about drinking.

I thought about beating my wife up

or ramming my car into somebody else's car

or telling the coach and kicking them in the you-know-where,

but I never, ever thought about drinking.

And so when I seen I lost my train of thought,

if I go off on a tangent, it doesn't really matter.

So, I felt like a hypocrite and this guy,

Bob Fisher was my sponsor before Tom and Bob passed.

Great man.

I remember Bob when I was brand new.

I used to go to a Monday night meeting

over at the hospital

and Bob had that booming voice and that smile

and he was always so nice to everybody.

And I would answer the phones Thursday night

when he'd call me, "Hey, Kirk, any calls?"

Well, yeah, we'd talk about it.

And I was so, about 15 years that I hadn't had a sponsor.

I said, "Well, I need a sponsor."

He goes, "Well, I don't sponsor people now."

And I said, "Okay, I gotta go."

Well, what he really had said was, "My wife has gotten sick.

"I only sponsor guys that have time."

And I had time, but I didn't hear that.

Two years later, I asked him again.

Now, two years, I mean, I screwed up my insides.

My relationship, my,

I don't know if my relationship would have ended anyway.

We were kind of oil and water.

That's how we were.

If I said, "This is a nice brown jacket."

She'd go, "No, it's really not brown," you know.

And she'd drive me nuts and then I'd have to react to that.

'Cause when you're sponsoring yourself,

you can't run by anything with anybody.

You just can't.

And then the next time he says, "Yeah, I'll sponsor you."

I didn't know that.

And I met him at the USR

and that's where my life kind of took off.

See, I thought because I coached at Northridge Little League

we were very successful there and had a lot of good guys.

Some of them made it to the major leagues

that played ball for me, not because of me,

but they liked me and all the stuff that I learned here.

I thought it was good enough just to go,

"Well, sure, I'll write you a letter of recommendation.

"I know how to do that."

"Well, sure."

But it wasn't.

'Cause just the same way that I knew when I was smoking dope

and not drinking that there was something wrong,

I knew that when I was doing all these things

and thinking I was being Mr. A, there was something wrong,

that I was cheating the program.

I was cheating what I had learned.

And so he became my sponsor

and I started going to the USR where I met Ish.

And the first night that I walked into that meeting,

there was a bunch of guys smoking cigars out front

and I walked up and just like I did in my first meeting,

I figured, you know, how long I had 29 years at the time

or something like that, I don't know.

I walked up, shouldn't some guys come up

and talk in the mirror, you know?

And they didn't.

And I went and sat by myself, just like new people do.

And then I finally figured out the next week I just went up,

shook the hand of five people I didn't know

and then six and then got active

and then went and answered phones and did all that stuff.

And now I'm in the middle.

When I was out there, when I was,

we never used this expression,

at least I never heard it when I was at Life's in Session

or even after that when I was going to other meetings,

being in the middle.

I never knew what that meant.

But I know what it's like now.

It's important, you know?

It's really important.

I love those guys at that meeting.

They saved my butt, you know?

And I think that, I mean, Ischger, like I told you,

I think he likes to, he's a good dude.

And he offers me compliments

by just including me in everything.

And sometimes even after 39 years and the last 11 years,

I've really rigorously worked in his program.

I still don't know how to accept that sometimes

because I still suffer from inadequacies

and low self-esteem and not good enough.

And that's why I gotta keep coming to these meetings

and telling you guys that.

You know, Bob was a great guy

and I would share with him things that were going on.

A relationship with my ex-wife and my son

was just the only thing that really screwed up my life

and the only problem I really had.

And he said, you know, you just need to turn it over

and that's none of your business.

And that was hard.

It was easy, but it was hard to do because I have answers.

You ask me a question after the meeting, I'll answer it.

You know, I'll probably be right

'cause that's the kind of guy, at least I think of him.

But anyway, so my friend's son got sober,

went to the Sunset Group,

got very involved about eight months ago.

My friend called me and he goes,

my daughter is having a problem with alcohol

and you're not gonna like this, Kurt.

She's gonna go to recovery.

I go, that's great.

In Hawaii, on Maui.

Oh, how much does that set you?

64 large, I know.

Well, it wasn't his money.

No, that's great.

Just tell me when she gets back

and what her next rehab's gonna be because that's true.

We all know that.

And she came back and then she went to Betty Ford.

I didn't take him up on sober living

and came back and went back to Betty Ford.

It was never her fault.

It was always somebody's fault.

Her dad's fault, her mom's fault.

Now I gotta talk Al-Anon stuff to this guy.

I don't know.

That's what I take to my Al-Anon guys by doing this right.

But I would text her and call her and leave a message.

I'm going to a Pacific Group meeting Wednesday night.

You wanna go?

And she opened the last text that she sent me and said,

well, I'm not, I'm suffering from a sickness right now.

I don't feel well.

So I'm not this weak.

And when I read that, I sent it to his father

and I said, if only she knew what sickness she was,

that she was, you know, and two Mondays ago,

he called me and she died.

Yeah, I don't feel, you know, it's just,

and there's another, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know you people.

And I know that Ryan's new and it doesn't matter.

I know guys that have gone out

with 25 years in sobriety.

I saw a guy take a cake at an agora men's stag meeting

for 25 years.

He wasn't there for two weeks.

I go, where the hell is the guy?

He blew his head off.

That's what he did.

So this is, you know, this is a kind of a scary deal.

So it's sad because next Monday,

I'm going to go to his daughter's funeral.

She was only 33 years old.

And she, it's just sad.

My brother, I start my day by reading three spiritual books

and a meditation book.

I believe I have a real good concept

and conscious contact with God.

But sometimes, like being inadequate, feeling inadequate,

sometimes I want, when I was sponsored by Chuck,

I would go over to his house and I would say,

this is going on, this is what's going on.

He'd say words, he'd say this,

and I'd walk out of there going, my life is great.

I want that every time.

The sponsor that I have now, and when I had Bob,

brilliant, brilliant guy.

And the sponsor I got, and I asked him something

a couple of days ago about a guy that I'm sponsoring,

answered the question.

But I seem to want, you know, can you, I don't know.

It's just very bizarre.

But so I read these books and I've read the Bible

three times.

That's a weird thing to do by yourself,

but I have this book and you can read, anyway.

So my brother who I was estranged from,

he was the older brother and we were the two sons

of the mother that had passed away.

He dealt with that insanity his way.

I dealt with it my way.

And we weren't really close.

I was a hippie and he was a straight laced dude.

And we'd see each other on and off.

And I decided to call him and we were talking to him,

you know, I got lung cancer.

He never smoked.

I go, wow.

He just retired from being a priest,

just bought a piece of property on a nice island

in Washington and he had lung cancer.

And I said, well, would you mind if I ask you questions

about this book here?

He goes, no, I mean, who better to ask?

And he wasn't one of these priests that says,

if you don't believe what I believe,

then you're going to hell.

He was an open-minded guy and it made it interesting.

And I called him all the time and we talked about it.

And then one day he goes, you know, Kirk,

and I said to Bob, I said, you know,

I think my brother owes me the men's or, you know,

because see, I was the younger brother

and he was like, you might want to rethink that.

And so just out of nowhere, I said, hey, Craig,

I just want to tell you, I really love you

and I apologize for it, you know, whatever the amends want.

Like, can I get you too, Kirk?

And he never did, but that was okay.

You know, all the suggestions and all the direction

that I get here that I've taken.

I had a situation recently where I lost a position

that I've had for many years in the sports community

and it drove me nuts and I prayed about it.

My sponsor said, let it go.

I said, yeah, but you don't get it.

And I finally said, you know what?

I'm going to let it go, I'm going to let it go.

It still comes up and infiltrates my brain every once in a while

but that's normal.

I don't get raged about it and I don't feel ripped off.

I just feel that that's God's plan

and that's where I'm headed.

So I get the light on.

Now I didn't see the red.

If I don't see the red one, can we tack on it?

No, we can't do that.

Anyway, you know, I sit around.

I live up in Simi, God's country, by the way.

And I had a cat.

I have a cat, two raccoons and a couple of birds.

And I had another cat, Larry, but he disappeared.

I think the coyote's gone.

I've suffered a lot of loss.

People, animals in the last year.

I get too confused trying to figure it out

'cause it's really, there's nothing I can do about it.

People live and then they die

and then they live and then they die.

But because of what I was taught here,

when my mother passed, I was there

and I rectified all those situations.

When my father died, because he had dementia,

I used to go up and visit him.

And I was the only guy, hey, Kurt.

And I was the black sheep,

but he would always know who I was

and he always knew I was there.

My sister called me.

I was walking down the first fairway at Simi Hills

and my sister called and she said,

"I think dad's gonna go.

He's right here."

And as I walked down, I said, "Dad, I love you.

Thank you for being such a great example

of being a human being."

He didn't talk a lot.

He just charged me up with his actions.

And because, see, the fact that I can feel that

is because of you guys.

The fact that I can say goodbye to him

and feel that my side of the street is clean

is because of you guys.

And so there's a lot of things that,

I don't have any of these at home.

Is this the door prize?

Anyway, thank you.

Thanks for letting me be here.