From Fear and Abuse to Sobriety: Ben's Journey

- Rooftop Alcoholics, Ben, thank you for inviting me.

It's my favorite thing to do on a Saturday night.

If I'm gonna speak,

I wanna speak like two blocks from my house.

You know, this is the thing to do.

I just wanna put some time on here

so I don't get too far into it and not get sober.

Man, I grew up on this block right here,

on White Oak and Stag.

And you know, and that was, you know, in the '70s.

And it was a crazy house, you know.

I had that house that, you know,

there was lots of hitting and yelling.

And just, you name it, any kind of abuse there was.

You know, I would, my dad was a musician.

He'd come home late at night and, you know,

you'd hear him screaming and him hitting my mom

and her fighting him off.

And I remember just feeling like such a coward,

just a little kid, you know, five years old maybe.

And putting my head underneath the blanket

and pretending like I was asleep, you know.

And then I had two brothers that were

eight and nine years older than me, you know.

And I was not their dad.

And they would do the best they could.

And he would beat the hell out of them, you know.

And they would beat the hell out of me.

You know, it was a vicious cycle, you know.

And I would go to school, you know.

And I remember like thinking,

I'm the only one that feels like this.

I'm the only one that's seeing what I'm seeing, you know,

that has a house like this.

And that's not the truth.

That's just my perception.

Lots of people grow up like that.

But from as long as I can remember,

home was not a safe place to be, you know.

You would not ask for help.

You would not show weakness.

In return, I would go to school and I never asked for help.

I was a bully, you know, 'cause I was bullied.

I was, you know, I felt like, you know,

if I can take the beatings I get at home,

there's no way that you're gonna hurt me at school.

You're my age or you're a kid.

There's no way.

I take beatings from my brother who's nine years older.

And, but I had this rage and I think you talked about it.

Like I would, you know, I would get in a pickle

and I can always, I can remember like teachers

and police officers and well-meaning people just like,

if you just apologize, you're off.

You're good.

And I'd just be like, no, I'd be like, no, no way.

You know, and inside I'm like, I would talk to myself.

I'd be like, why can't you just apologize?

Why can't you just get over this?

And I was just so full of rage, man.

And fear, I mean, fear is really what it was,

what I learned later in life after I got sober.

But, you know, and then my dad split

and it was just my mom raising three boys, you know.

And I would watch my, my mom was, she's an alcoholic

and she didn't start drinking until after he left

'cause she had to.

And, you know, I would see her come home,

her coworkers carry her in the door

and I would just be like, what's wrong with my mom?

You know, I would just have this, I would just,

all this fear.

I mean, 'cause it was like, if I didn't have her,

like who's gonna take care of me?

I remember thinking that.

Like she's the only one I got.

And they'd throw her in bed

and then I'd see her crawl around 'cause she couldn't walk.

And she would crawl around the floor.

And after years of watching that, I was like,

I was just callous to it.

I was just like, she's just drunk again, you know.

And then like seventh grade, man,

as soon as I got into Northridge Junior High, you know,

kids said, hey, you wanna come with us, you know.

And we went over here to Sherman Way,

the Thrifty's over here on Sherman Way and Etiwanda.

And we stole a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps.

And that's the nastiest shit.

I don't know why.

That's a white person thing.

Mexicans don't drink Peppermint Schnapps.

But it was the closest thing to the door, you know.

And we, it was like toothpaste and gasoline.

We rode our bicycles over to an alley,

which is, I did a lot of drinking in alleys.

I felt comfortable in alleys, you know,

and parking lots and rooftops.

And we're three 12-year-olds, you know,

in a circle there and we're taking shots

of this god-lawful Peppermint Schnapps.

And I can remember what it did for me.

It just took all that fear away, you know.

And, 'cause that was, I mean,

that was just the common thread in my life was just fear.

Fear at home, fear at school,

fear at football practice, at the teen center, on victory,

you know.

I remember, I remember my first day,

'cause my brother played popcorn and football

and then high school football at Cleveland.

I want to play football.

And my mom didn't have any money, you know.

And she's like, all right, you know,

just know that you play, you're playing.

And the first practice, this kid knocked the shit out of me.

I walked right off the field to the car.

I'm like, let's go.

She's like, no, get your ass back out there, you know.

And again, I'm like, I'm full of fear, you know.

And I'm getting yelled at by this guy, the coach.

He's yelling at me.

And the parents would sit in the parking lot

and they would drink, you know, and smoke, you know.

That was the '70s.

And, you know, did I drink every day at 12 years old?

Not every day, but man,

we came pretty close to drinking every day, you know.

I would go into my mom's room.

My mom used to sleep with her purse like this, you know.

'Cause it was just, my brothers were robbing and blowing.

We had deadbolts on all,

everybody had deadbolts on their bedroom doors.

So you'd come in through the window

and you'd need a key 'cause there was a dead,

you had a key.

You had to get out of the room with a key too.

So you had to go back out, you know.

And I would go and all I needed was $1.50, man.

At first, I'd go through the couch pillows,

see if I could find some change.

I just needed $1.50 so I could get a 40 of Old Emmish 800.

Yeah, I would put it at Rick Slicker through 7-Eleven

on White Oak and Sadokoy, you know.

All I needed was, man, this is 13 years old, you know.

And we're drinking, it was easier to steal hard alcohol

than, you know, a 12-pack of beer.

You just steal a bottle.

And at 12, 13 years old, I'm drinking,

I'm drinking a pint of Southern Comfort, no problem.

I could, you know.

I love that.

I don't know, everybody talks shit about Southern Comfort.

Man, I loved it.

It was like candy, you know.

I built up this tolerance to alcohol, you know.

I remember playing quarters with my cousins

who were my elders.

They were 10, 15 years older than me, you know.

And they had no problem getting high

with their 13, 14-year-old cousin.

And they were just so, they were like,

they looked at me and they're like, you got a problem.

Because I could just take shots.

I could just take shots and it was no problem.

And they're like, man, you drink way too much

for a 13-year-old, you know.

And my mom was always trying to get us a dad, you know.

We'd be running him off, all these guys.

And, you know, her boyfriend of the week

was spending the night.

We'd ridden up on our bikes at 12, 1 o'clock in the morning.

And I opened the door and his keys were right there

by the front door.

He had the '65 Coupe de Ville Cadillac.

It was parked right on White Oak.

I'm like, whoa, wait up, guys.

And I'm 13 years old.

I've never driven a car before,

but it didn't look that hard.

And so we're all these 13-year-olds jumping this Cadillac

and we're joyriding around Reseda.

Going down Valerio, we pimped a suitcase of beer at 7-Eleven.

And, you know, Valerio goes this way, East-West.

And all the streets that go across it

have that little gutter.

And that Cadillac would just go boom, boom.

And you would just see all these sparks flying up

and we're laughing.

I can barely see over the street.

I'm like, this is the best.

I totally know why people drink and drive.

It's fun, you know?

And, you know, this car's like out of gas

and we got to put like 50 cents of gas in it.

And I bring, that's this, that 7-Eleven right there

used to have gas pumps.

And I bring it in.

I've never put gas in a car.

And those concrete posts that saved the gas pumps,

I went, I just, I brought it in too tight, man.

And I was stuck.

I'm reverse, forward, and I'm just stuck

just grinding this Cadillac on the gas pumps.

And I parked it right back on White Oak,

right in front of our house.

And this poor guy gets up to go to work

and I heard him screaming.

I'm like, yeah, man, I heard someone hit your car last night.

That's a bummer.

We live on a busy street, you know, that's what happens.

And once, you know, that guy stuck around

and became my dad, you know, and he was a good guy.

He was a good guy.

He was the Marlboro man.

I finally had a white dad, you know.

He wore a Pendleton every day, a Glazer Union hat,

Levi's and work boots, and smoked pow mows.

He was just hard bastard.

And he did everything for me.

I mean, he showed me really what a man was, you know.

And I got to, you know, take care of him before he died.

He had Alzheimer's, you know.

And it was my privilege to do that.

And I learned that here.

I learned, I watched you guys do it for your parents

at the end of their life, you know, and it was hard.

And I was like, why me, why me, why do I have to do this?

But I didn't want to look back and have regret, you know.

And anyways, you know, I'm a young alcoholic.

I go to recede a continuation, you know,

with all the drug addicts and pregnant girls, you know.

It was perfect.

It was mecca, you know.

And, you know, I finally had a car, an Allen car,

a little Ford pickup truck.

And I drank and drove every day.

Every day, I drank on high and drank every day, you know.

I mean, from 13 to probably the time I got sober,

my drug of choice was Old English A100 and PCP, you know.

That's where I like to go.

I like to like funk, lean against something

and stay there for 10 hours, you know.

And that's back when you could ride around,

people could ride around in the truck, you know.

And I like getting sideways around corners.

My friends are rolling around in the back of this truck

and it's one, two in the morning.

We're down at the, we're oxing our dead ends

into Balboa Park in the back.

We'd sit there and drink and have the tunes blast in

until wee hours in the morning, really.

And we're driving home and I'm getting crazy driving

and these guys are like, let us out.

You're gonna kill us.

I let them out and the next corner I go around,

I get sideways and I roll that drink.

With me and my buddies, no seat belts.

We rolled that truck a couple of times on a stack

and I landed right on the wheels

and the top is smashed in the driver's side.

You couldn't, I mean, my head bounced off the roof.

All the windows were busted out

and you could not open the doors.

And you talk about, you know, seconds and inches.

I could have killed all those guys

that were in the back of that truck.

I couldn't see it at the time, you know.

I was like, you guys got lucky, you know.

But looking back, man, I was like, I know there's a guy.

I started that thing right up and I drove it home.

And I drove it to receive a continuation

for the next two months.

No windshield, the top caved in.

And you know, when you have no wind,

there's a reason for having a windshield, you know.

There's bugs and rocks that fly near your face.

So I used to wear a motorcycle.

I was very careful 'cause I would just drive,

I would drive up alleys to Lindley

and then I would take Lindley to school

and I'd park it in the high school parking lot, you know.

And people were spray painting, ouch, P-O-S, you know.

I remember a girl asking me for my head home.

Obviously she had not seen my car.

I walked up on this piece of crap.

And she's like, "This is your car."

And I helped her in the passenger side, you know,

like NASCAR and I let her wear my goggles on, you know.

And I lived in this apartment building right here,

the Kingswood Village, right across the street from here.

And that's where it all, you know, fell apart.

I had a little girlfriend, she was probably 19.

I was 20, you know, maybe 21, it's all up there, you know.

I had, my manager was a drug dealer.

We were having a party in my apartment

and he was a boarding egg Christian too, which was weird.

And he brought up, he brought the Bible cocaine

and he brought his like buddy from church

who did not drink or use.

And I was like, "So you don't want a beer?

"You don't want nothing?"

He's like, "No."

You know, and I'm like, "That makes me uncomfortable."

You know, and I was on this guy.

I'm like, "Are you a narc?"

You know, "What's going on?"

It just seemed odd, you know.

And I was on this kid and he finally had a drink

and he finally had it and he was having a good time.

I pretty much blacked out at that point.

And then I woke up in the morning.

I came too and there were some people

that were passed out on the floor,

but I came too to this kid's screams

'cause he had drank too much

and he had passed out on his own and his arm was black.

And then we took him to the Northridge emergency

and they said that the circulation had been cut off

for way too long.

They were gonna have to remove his arm

or they're either gonna have to,

he would have to wear it in a sling.

I pretty much left at that point.

And I knew that was my fault, you know.

And the thing, you know, I just, my life got small,

super small.

I stopped hanging out and I would just drink it.

And I had my girlfriend, we had a brand new baby

and I'm drinking and I'm hell on wheels, man.

Getting in fights at work.

I'm putting my hands on that girl, you know.

Anyway, I'd come to in the morning and she'd say,

she'd have a mark on her head right here.

Well, I threw the keys at her, you know.

Sweat all up and down.

Man, I'll never do that, you know, I'm so sorry.

I meant it.

I mean, I felt like a monster.

But the thing is, I'm an alcoholic.

I didn't know it at the time,

but the more time that passes from that incident,

I start to feel better.

The more time that goes by, I started taking the towel back.

And I started saying,

if you wouldn't have been yelling at me,

I wouldn't have had to hit you.

And then I came home from work one time and she was gone.

All her stuff was gone.

And at this point, my life is so small.

And she was the only one I had left.

So I called up central office

and they directed me to the Valley Club.

And at that point, it was on that island in Tampa.

You know, the big Alano Club, you know,

windows in the front with the big tables

and the podium, just like this.

And I'm standing in the parking lot and I'm looking inside

and I see everybody's putting the chairs up on the tables

and they're hugging each other goodbye, you know,

and they're laughing and sitting out there now

just shaking my head thinking,

I'm never gonna feel the way those people look, you know.

And this isn't the solution, you know.

AA's not my answer, you know.

And Clancy talks about getting to a point

where there's no friendly direction anymore.

That was me.

I was 24 years old and I had nowhere to go.

I just sat outside and started crying.

And this guy pulled up, he's wearing a suit just like me.

He came up to me and he put his arm around me

and he said, it's gonna be all right.

It's gonna be all right.

But he took me inside and he sat me down

next to this little old lady

who must have been about 40 years old.

And I'm terrified, I'm terrified.

And she was white, she was a scientist.

She was a lot older than me

and all I see is the differences, you know,

and she bought me a big book and she opened the book

and she wrote, this is your sobriety date, June 11th, 1992.

And she said, that guy that brought you in there,

you should ask him to be your sponsor.

I was like, yeah, all right, I'll do it.

I didn't know what it all meant.

But I was desperate enough to take actions

that I didn't believe in, you know.

And that lady was Marilyn Slater from the Pacific group.

And when she started sharing her story,

I started to identify, you know,

just like she's drunk right now

and she knows she's held up in her garage drunk again

and it's gonna be like this tomorrow

and the next day and the next day

and it's never gonna change.

And I know how that feels and I identified.

And that guy was, the guy that has to be my sponsor

was a year and a half sober.

Might as well have been sober, you know.

Like how do you get a year and a half sober?

And he told me to be at his house the next day

and he was gonna take me to a meeting

and I showed up in proper meeting attire

for June in the Valley with flip-flops, shorts

and a tank top.

Well, I didn't know that he just started

going to the Pacific group.

So it's Wednesday night

and he takes me to the Wednesday night Pacific group meeting

on sunset and he was on the parking crew

and they gave me the airport flashlight.

He's like, "Get over there and tell those people

to turn down the driveway."

I'm just like, "My life's over.

What's this have to do with getting sober, you know?

Am I gonna get my girlfriend back, you know?

And you guys just kept,

you just told me to keep coming back, you know?"

I'm like, "Man, no one's listening to me.

They just keep me,

they just tell me to keep coming back.

They don't wanna hear my problems.

They don't understand, you know?"

And, you know, that's a group of action, I'll say that.

I have a lot of problems with the Pacific group.

Man, it saved my life, saved my life, you know?

I drank the Kool-Aid, I'll tell you that.

I was like seven meetings a week, the yard on Saturday,

going to watches, going to parties, you know?

And it was a slow burn for me.

It's like, I don't trust these people.

I definitely don't trust men.

And it's hard when you don't trust anybody, you know?

But the beauty was they played softball for me.

I hadn't played sports, I hadn't run, I hadn't laughed,

you know?

And over there, you learn to grow some thick skin.

You learn to laugh at yourself.

And nothing was funny at first.

I got in a lot of fights in sobriety

'cause I thought you were laughing at me, you know?

And you were, everybody was, you know?

And it was funny, but I was so hypersensitive, man.

Like you made me look stupid, you're gonna pay.

'Cause I remember what that felt like when I was a kid,

you know?

Except I'm not a little kid anymore, you know?

And these are people that care about me.

And I can remember if you saw a picture of me

before I got sober and everybody in my family,

any kind of family picture, everybody had a smile like this.

I mean, no one knew how to smile.

No one laughed, nothing was funny, you know?

And then I looked at a picture at a wedding,

a AA wedding, and it was the first time I had ever smiled.

And I mean, it was cool, but it was also sad, you know?

'Cause I started to, I started to laugh in AA.

I started to laugh at myself.

I started to, you know,

just not take everything so seriously.

And my life started to change

when I didn't even notice it, you know?

And I started to not, I noticed that I started

to not be afraid all the time, every day.

And you know, I do jiu-jitsu now.

I've been doing jiu-jitsu for a long time.

And that's my, I have another community in that community.

And we all went out to coffee after class yesterday.

We're sitting there, it's just like this.

It's a fellowship, you know?

We're sitting there, we take pictures.

Now look at my pictures and pictures of these guys

who are, I would never mix with these people.

Not because I'm better than them,

but because I'm not good enough to be with people like this.

That was my problem, you know?

I'm just, I'm not good enough, I'm dumb.

And drinking, fix that.

So you take that away from me,

and now what am I left with?

I have to fix, I have to work on my character defects.

I have to see what my shortcomings are.

I gotta drink some of this water, thanks.

And it takes a lot of work, you know?

It's like the steps, the steps in my first year,

I did them the best I could.

The best I could for someone that couldn't remember

half of the shit he had done, you know?

But you get five years of sobriety,

all of a sudden my life is running out my sleeve, you know?

And I'm remembering stuff that I had done.

Like that kid that happened with his arm across the street,

I didn't remember that in my first inventory.

I didn't, I was a burnout, man.

I could not read when I got here, you know?

And to get asked to do, you know,

how it works Wednesday night,

I'm stuttering and stumbling through there.

I'm sweating.

I'm like, I'm gonna pout, you gotta breathe, you know?

Like the best part of life is breathing.

And I'm like, I'm gonna pass out, you know?

And I'm that guy that got through the chapter five

and everybody applauded, you know?

And I felt that big.

So, you know, getting about five years of sobriety,

I had to go through the steps again

and it had to be thorough.

And then my sobriety went to a different level

at that point.

And then I started sponsoring guys, you know?

'Cause I would whine.

I'd had like two, three years, three years of sobriety.

And I'm like, how come no one's asking me to sponsor them?

You know, I got a lot to offer.

I had nothing to offer, you know?

I was that guy on the fringe talking shit

about all you got, all you joiners, you know?

You kiss asses.

Oh, I gotta commit.

What's your commitment?

What's your, I got this guy.

I'm like, whatever, dude.

You know, I signed up for something,

but I wouldn't show up to do it, you know?

And I saw everybody that I got sober with getting better.

I was not.

And this guy, Homeless Ray, asked me to sponsor him.

Homeless Ray lived on,

he lived behind a bush on Wilshire and Sepulveda

on the freeway underpass right there

before they changed it all.

And I'd pull up in my little roofing truck

and I'd honk my horn and Ray would come out,

jump in the truck and we'd go to fellowship

before Wednesday night.

We'd go to the meeting

and I'd take Ray back to the bush, you know?

I told Ray, I go, you're my first and only sponsee, dude.

I'm gonna take you to the top.

Watch, I'm gonna show all these dudes what's up.

Ray drank like three days later.

He was drinking probably the whole time, you know?

And my motives weren't right, you know?

I cared more about me than I cared about anybody else.

And it wasn't until I started caring about other people

and it happened slow for me.

And, you know, I've been married a few times now.

I love Asian women, yeah.

There's a reason why they tell you don't date in AA.

'Cause if it doesn't work out, she's over there

on the other side of the room looking way better

than when she was with me, right?

And now it's not a safe place, you know?

I come here to save my life and all I can think about

is her, who she's sitting with, yada, yada, yada.

But, you know, we had some kids, you know?

All the kids worked for me, I have a roofing company,

you know, that I started my first year sobriety.

I saw this guy who could not stay sober,

slap a magnet on the side of his van

and he was in business.

And I was like, man, if this dude can do it, I can do it.

You know, finally I started to believe

that I could do something in life.

You know, I've been in business ever since, you know?

That's why I think there's so many entrepreneurs in AA

because no one will hire them, you know?

Because we can't work for other people, you know?

And I think we're way sharper

than we give ourselves credit for, you know?

I've seen so many people just accomplish so much stuff

in AA, you know, in recovery.

Go to school, come out of the mission,

start their own businesses, you know?

It's a miracle.

That's how I know there's a God.

I know there's a God.

And it's doing all the stuff that I don't wanna do,

you know, that's what changes my life, you know?

I don't feel like being here.

I mean, I do now.

But when I was getting dressed, I was comfy and it was warm.

I'm in my underwear, you know?

But it's all the stuff that I don't wanna do, you know?

Ray T. talks about being divinely inconvenienced, you know?

It's God, you know?

It's God working my life.

It's doing for other people.

That's how I get out of myself, you know?

And I have to keep my commitments

and say yes to AA requests.

I do that, my life changes.

Thanks so much.