Marty’s Journey: 46 Years of Sobriety, Family Roots, and Humor

- My name is Marty, I'm an alcoholic.

- I don't know how to be.

- I wanna thank Ben for asking me to come out

and share with you guys tonight.

Happy birthday to Bruce.

It's just so cool tonight.

'Cause my sister's here, who I've known for 61 years,

and she's my best female friend probably.

And my best male friend just showed up.

I won't break his anonymity,

but his name really sounds like Wayne Butler.

It's right along that line somehow.

And the unfortunate thing is he's got like two days

of sobriety more than me.

I've been living with that for 46 years.

I always tell him it's quality, not quantity.

And he goes, "How would you know?"

(laughing)

That's what he gives with two days of sobriety.

I have a sobriety date that's November 10th of 1977.

I have a home group, it's an online group,

called Stay Connected, we meet every morning at 9 a.m.

And I have a sponsor, his name's Carl Morris.

And the irony is I called Carl as I was driving in tonight.

And this is the meeting where I first met Carl

a long time ago.

And so I was just driving in and I said,

"Hey, I'm gonna go speak at the meeting

where I think it was the first time I ever saw you."

He had like four years of sobriety back then.

And so anyways, just a lot of good memories,

especially with Cindy and Wayne being here,

it's pretty cool.

And then I went to Alex's Bar Mitzvah.

I didn't wanna say the wrong one

because they sound a lot alike to me.

And then Greg got asked to speak for me

at a Sunday night Ohio street a long time ago.

That was pretty cool.

And there's a lot of history here.

And thank God, because I haven't dreamt.

As one speaker used to say all the time,

"This not drinking thing has a lot to do with this program."

And I drank so much, I used to drink my bottled water.

That's how much I drank, you know?

And Bill, don't make that face.

If you make that face, that means you tried it.

Born and raised over here in Riverside, San Bernardino area.

I'm the youngest of three.

My sister and my brother are both older than me.

We were raised by our father, a German guy.

And my mom's 100% Eskimo, I didn't know my mom.

She left when I was 11 months old.

And I guess the divorce was so bitter and bad

that we moved into the brand new house.

Pictures of mom didn't go back up on the wall.

So I didn't know what my mom looked like, I really didn't.

But I knew one thing for sure,

is I didn't look like this German dad.

My German dad's six foot two,

blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.

And that's who I thought I was gonna look like.

And all three of us kids did our own thing, man.

And we did it good.

And I don't know when I started everything

because I met my mom at my high school graduation.

And I was a year sober.

And when I got done with the graduation,

she says, "What are your plans now?"

I says, "I don't have any."

She says, "Why don't you move to Alaska then?"

And what flashed through my head real quick

was one of those great podium stories

that you get to hear from the podium periodically

where I've connected with my mom

and we have a great relationship now.

That's not our story.

I went up to Alaska and I pulled that lady out of a bar,

almost every single night.

And she lost custody of us three kids in the early '60s.

And most women didn't lose custody of kids back then.

The only reason she lost custody of all three of us kids

is 'cause she's a really bad drinker.

So here it is 16 years later and she's still a bad drink.

Now fast forward all the way up to last week,

our mom's 86 years old

and she's in the hospital detoxing off of fentanyl.

She's still doing it.

And there's a question of if she was force fed

the fentanyl or not, but she's just a bad drunk.

That's the bottom line.

And my dad was also a bad drunk too.

And like I said, me and my brother and sister,

we were all doing our own things.

I gotta tell you this, my sobriety date

is with this guy named Gary.

And I talked to Gary on my way in too.

And we went to middle school together

and we're gonna play golf together next week

'cause Gary now has 12 years of sobriety.

So you just never know how this stuff is gonna affect you.

And that's part of my story later on in sobriety.

But I hung out with primarily this young kid

I met when I was nine years old.

He's straight out of Louisville, Kentucky.

And he's about as Southern as you can get.

He's about as hillbilly as you can get too.

And if you have low self worth, low self esteem like I do,

you hang out with a set of people long enough,

you'll start dressing like them,

walking like them and talking like them.

And that's exactly what I started doing.

I started talking with a Southern draw.

Now I'm a little Eskimo that's never left Riverside,

but somehow I picked up a Southern draw,

walking out of my own house,

looking at my own family saying, "How y'all doing?"

You know, make things about yay long stuff is over yonder.

And I'm married today

and I still haven't got rid of that word yonder.

My wife said, "Well, where's whatever?"

And I said, "Oh, it's over yonder."

And she says, "You know you're not a hillbilly, right?"

So we're all doing our own thing and our dad was a bad drunk.

My mom lost custody of us 'cause she's a bad drunk.

But I'm here to tell you,

my sister makes it till midnight,

she'll have 47 years of sobriety.

I've got 46 years, she's got 47.

Our current mom, hint, hint, has 48 years of sobriety

and our dad has 49 years of sobriety.

And then that older brother that I have

has just celebrated 20, I think 25.

We don't know how long he's sober.

But anyways, and then,

sometimes I get to talk about, sometimes I don't.

But when I was 25 years old, 10 years sober,

I'm selling cars over here at Kramer Chevrolet

in Santa Monica.

And my sister calls me up and says,

"Hey, guess what, we have an older brother."

I went, "Duh, we've always had an older brother."

She says, "No, we have one older than him."

And part of my dad's fourth step came out of nowhere.

And this kid was given up for adoption at birth

and our dad just didn't care to tell us about that.

So we met him and he now has,

I don't think he's sober anymore,

but he had 35 years of sobriety, you know?

So like coming to our house is like going to rehab, you know?

One of us are gonna get you so.

And so I was doing my own thing.

So I'll talk about myself.

I can talk a lot about my whole family

because we're all here, we're all around here.

But I was hanging out with this hillbilly kid

that turned me on to everything.

And I was not a kind of guy.

I did a lot of mean stuff, but I did it quietly.

By the time I got to you guys, I had two DUI stories.

I had three breaking-in enterings.

I'd been kicked out or dropped

out of five different high schools.

And I was on summary probation for harboring a runaway.

And so I had issues by the time I got to you guys.

I was only 15 years old when I came in.

I came in Alcoholics Anonymous

and I was the last one in the family to come in.

My dad had three years of sobriety.

My sister had eight months of sobriety.

My brother had a few more months than I did.

But like I said, he didn't stick around.

And then I came in November of 1977.

And when I came in, we were all living out in Simi Valley.

Didn't know where Simi Valley was, I really didn't.

But I'm the last in the family drinking and using.

And my family's leaving every single night

in Simi Valley to go to another AA meeting.

And I just felt so sorry for them.

They just like, to me, they're geeking out, you know?

And what I did notice is that my family would dress up

on Friday nights and they would come

to the San Fernando Valley for a dressed up AA meeting.

Ooh, doesn't that sound exciting?

So my sister did her second 12 step call.

If you ever hear my sister's story,

she talks about doing a 12 step call.

I mean, it worked 'cause he's got 48,

whatever years of sobriety.

The first call didn't work out very well.

But the second call worked out a little bit better.

She asked me to go to this Friday night meeting

that my whole family was going to.

Why don't you just go listen to this guy speak

and see if you can identify with any of the feeling.

And I didn't have feelings back then.

So I just thought it was an interesting request.

And I thought, well, they do dress up every Friday night,

so let me go see what this is about.

The whole drive from Simi Valley to the San Fernando Valley,

they kept telling me, you're gonna like this speaker.

You're gonna like this speaker.

You're gonna like this speaker.

And I'm going, no, I'm not, no, I'm not, no, I'm not.

And I got to hear what I guess was called

the West Valley Speaker meeting,

which I think turned into the Platte Avenue Speaker meeting.

We used to call it Herb's meeting

'cause there's a television star with the first name of Herb

that went to this meeting.

So we just called it Herb's meeting.

And I never knew the name of this meeting

till I was nine years old.

But so I drove out with my family to come to this meeting.

And the guy that I got to hear speak

on my very first night in Alcoholics Anonymous

was a guy named Norm Alpe.

And Norm Alpe used to give one hell of a talk.

When he walked into the room,

you felt him walk into the room.

He was full of energy.

He loved Alcoholics Anonymous.

He loved newcomers.

This dude was on fire.

And the day, he probably walked into the day he died

about Alcoholics Anonymous.

And he had a whole bunch of little one-liners, you know.

The one that I was gonna hold onto

because here's what was happening back then in my life.

My family would all go to AA every night

and they'd come back with either a friend or two each.

So there could be up to like eight or nine people

in our living room.

And the meeting after the meeting was at our house.

And that sucks when you're trying to get high and drunk.

You know, your whole family comes home,

they're all fired up about some AA meeting.

But they'd sit around and they'd talk about the speakers

that heard that.

And I never felt part of my family.

Now I really didn't feel part of my family

because I never heard any of these speakers.

But when I went and heard Norm speak, he said this one line.

And back then, you know, there's a big old podium like this.

It's at a church in San Fernando Valley,

somewhere over there in Topanga, I think.

But it was an open aisle

and there's five chairs on this road,

five chairs on this road and one way back.

And Norm looked at the front row

'cause my dad's always believed

in sitting in the front row.

He's 86 years old.

And he would still be in college today if he could, you know.

He loves college.

And he always believed in sitting in the front row.

Sit up front, kids.

Sit up front, kids.

Sit up front.

So we're all sitting there.

And when I said earlier that our current mom

is 48 years sober, it's 'cause this is our sixth mom,

you know, and I think it's magnificent.

If you get one PhD behind your name,

my dad has two of them.

And he has a marriage family therapist license.

Yeah, think about that one for that quick second.

And, but we went to this meeting and there was my dad

in the front row, first chair.

There was possible mom number three, mom number four.

And then there was my brother, my sister, and myself.

And Norm said this one line

and he looked at all three of us kids.

Because I was 15, that makes my sister either 16

or also 15 at that time of year.

No, 16 maybe.

And my brother was 17 or 18.

Depends on what time of year it was, I don't know.

But he looked at all three of us kids and he says,

"It doesn't matter how much you drink, where you drink,

"but what matters is what it's doing to you.

"And if alcohol's tearing up any part of your life,

"you're in the right place."

And then he said, while he looked at us three teenagers,

he says, "You can be eight or 80."

And I held onto that line in my head

because when we went home, I was gonna attempt

to try to feel like I fit in with my own family.

And so I sat in the living room with everybody else,

which I normally didn't do.

And they would light up another pot of coffee,

like they hadn't had enough of that crap

to drink for the night.

And they'd sit around and talk about the speaker.

And you've all been to participate each meeting.

And so a little round robin goes right around the room.

And you know when it's your turn to share.

Person's sitting next to you sharing.

So you start going on in your head

what you're gonna share.

And that's exactly what I did.

My sister's sitting right next to me.

I'm thinking, I'm gonna say that line

that it doesn't matter if you're eight or 80.

If alcohol's tearing up any part of your life,

you're in the right place.

That was the line I was gonna rehearse.

And I was going over and over in my head about it.

And then what does my sister do right next to me?

She says, "I like that line."

He said, "But it doesn't matter if you're eight or 80."

And I thought, that bitch.

I mean, excuse me.

That moon person, you know?

'Cause I don't know if you can identify

with this as a newcomer.

And I didn't turn around to see

if there's any newcomers here.

And if there is, welcome.

But when I was a newcomer,

I really think people knew what was going on

up inside my head.

And I felt like you guys judged me for what was up there.

And when she said that,

I thought this is a full on conspiracy theory.

She knew what I was gonna say

without me even saying anything.

That's how deluded I was back then.

I really thought she could read my mind.

And I thought the only reason she's doing that

is to get me go back to hear this guy Norm Alpe speak again.

And I thought it was just a cruel thing

because I told my family,

I'm gonna go back with you guys next Friday

'cause I wanna be sure that Norm Alpe speak again.

Not once did all three of my family members let me know

that next week's speaker was gonna be somebody different.

They kept their mouth shut.

And I figured that was the way

that they're gonna get me to my second meeting.

'Cause sometimes your second meeting

is the hardest meeting to get to.

And so I went back the next week,

full on expecting to hear this guy named Norm Alpe speak.

And he wasn't speaking, I was bummed.

But here's my blessing.

The guy that spoke the next Friday night

was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain, Chuck C.

And to me, there's not a better introduction

to AA than hearing Norm speak one night

and the very next time you go there's Chuck C.

That's a hell of an introduction to alcoholics anonymous.

And that night I heard Chuck C speak

is when my sister sort of dropped

that second 12 step call on me.

Why don't you try to identify with the feelings?

And that man got up there.

He was 62 years old with 29 years of sobriety.

I was only 15.

And I don't even know if I'm an alcoholic.

But at the end of the meeting,

I raised my hand as an alcoholic.

'Cause what he shared, I could identify with.

I could not identify with the fact

that he wrecked the Chevy car

and he's no longer gonna go buy Chevys

because that's why he wrecked the car.

It wasn't because of the alcohol.

He's getting kicked out of his house.

He's gonna be thrown out a business woman, a window.

And the window didn't open.

I mean, all this stuff,

I couldn't identify with any of that stuff

'cause I was only 15.

What I identified with is all the crappy feelings

behind all that stuff.

And so I raised my hand as an alcoholic and I was scared.

I didn't know I was scared back then.

I just did whatever you guys said you did.

If you guys said you went and got a big book,

I found out what a big book was and I buy a big book.

Or I think I spelled my first one.

And you said you read the 12 and 12.

I found out what that was.

And you guys said you went and got a sponsor.

And I went, okay, I'm gonna go get a sponsor.

Don't even know what a sponsor is, but I'm gonna get one.

And this is how shallow I was when I was 15 years old.

I looked around the Simi Valley Alana Club

and I picked this guy who had the coolest name.

I didn't even know what kind of program he was.

I didn't know how long he was sober,

but I just thought he had a cool name.

That's how shallow he was.

'Cause I wanted to go up to the podium some night

and his name was Stormy.

And I thought, I wanna go up to the podium some night

and say, my name's Marty, I'm an alcoholic,

and Stormy's my sponsor.

I just thought that had a cool ring.

Within seconds I found out where he got that nickname from.

This dude was Stormy.

And he says, you're that young kid trying to get sober.

I went, yes.

And he says, how long are you sober now?

I says, I think I got like 31 days.

And he said, well, your first order of direction

is to quit sharing 'cause you shared every meeting

that you go to.

And we wanna hear the message, not the mess.

And I went, okay, that's a weird request.

Wants me to stop sharing and I got great stuff

to share with all these old people.

And he says, and by the way, I don't like the way you think.

'Cause every time you share you talk about

what you're thinking.

I don't like the way you think.

And I thought, what does this have to do

with AA and sobriety, you know?

He says, so if you're ever gonna use the word think

around me, I'm gonna hang up or walk away.

And I just thought, wow, now I know where he got

that name Stormy from.

And sure enough, he did exactly that.

He says, that was on like a Tuesday that I asked him

to sponsor me.

He says, on Thursday, I'm gonna go speak in Thousand Oaks

and I want you to meet me there.

And that's what he said.

But what I heard, 'cause I was a newcomer,

what I heard was that he just wanted me to get to a meeting.

And I couldn't get from Simi Valley to Thousand Oaks.

I'm only 15 years old.

I don't have a car, I don't have a driver's license.

And as he politely pointed out,

because I had two DUI stories, he says,

well, it hasn't stopped you before.

So I didn't go Thursday night to hear him speak

because I thought he just wanted me to get to a meeting.

So I went to a local meeting and I was supposed

to call him every morning.

I called him on Friday morning and his first words

out of his mouth was, where were you last night?

And I said, well, you asked me to meet you

at the Church of the Oaks.

What I thought I heard you say was, we got disconnected.

Well, that's interesting.

So I called him back up and I was gonna tell him,

I think we just got disconnected.

I said, Stormy, it's Marty, I think we just,

we got disconnected again.

Well, I said, like, what's going on with this guy?

So I called him back the third time.

I says, I don't know what's going on.

He says, let me tell you what's going on.

I already told you I don't like the way you think.

And you start off your first conversation with those,

I thought, and thought is the past tense of thinking.

So I hung up on you.

I went, wow.

And he says, the second time you called,

you started off with I think, and I hung up on you again.

What's this guy up to?

So needless to say, he didn't stick around very long.

'Cause I fired him, you know?

If your sponsor's not doing the right thing,

you gotta get rid of him, right?

So I went and got this guy, 1000 Oaks,

named Tire Shop Joe, still shallow.

The only reason I got Tire Shop Joe to be my sponsor,

I'm 15 years old with a couple months of sobriety,

Tire Shop Joe had five, not four, not three,

he had five daughters.

And I was hedging my bets.

Like maybe I can get in with one of those daughters,

you know?

And sure enough, I scored, you know?

I went to the Church of the Oaks on Thursday night,

and at this meeting hall, there was an AA meeting one room,

there was an Al-Anon meeting across the hall,

and there was an Alateen meeting over here.

And I'm only 15 years old.

I'm 15 and a half now, 'cause I got my driver's permit.

And back then, you were able to drive at 15 and a half.

My dad bought me a car, and so I was styling, man.

I went to this meeting, and the people at AA

were way too old for me.

So I'm not gonna do the coffee break with my own people.

I went down the hall to this Alateen meeting,

and I saw this little hot chick in the neck,

and I'm still shallow, and I had to ask her out,

'cause her name was Gigi.

Isn't that a cool name?

I wanted to date Gigi.

So, "Hey, Gigi, everybody's going to do parts

after the meeting, will you go with me?"

She says, "Yeah, I'd love to."

She says, "I've gotta ask my dad though."

She came back up to me, she said, "My dad says it's okay."

I went, "Cool."

And so we went to do parts, and I stuck her on the inside

of the booth so she couldn't get out, right?

And I'd like to show off to my brand new sponsor

that I got a hot chick, you know?

So tire shop Joe come walking in to do parts,

he walks right up to the table, I got my arm around Gigi

'cause I want to show off, and she goes, "Hi, Dad."

Oh, man, it was the hardest movement of my right arm

of my whole life, you know?

It was to try to back my arm off his own daughter.

And he says, "I want to talk to you about this."

Uh-oh.

You know, and back then, there was not a lot of creativity

to nicknames, you know?

He was Tire Shop Joe because his name was Joe

and he owned a tire shop.

I mean, there's no creativity.

And we had a guy in our group named Carpenter Mike,

one more time, no creativity.

His name was Mike and he was a carpenter, you know?

When I started off on this path of recovery

and just doing whatever you guys said that you did,

I followed this lady a lot, you know?

She left home, my brother left home,

and I was still underage.

I graduated from high school from Simi Valley,

and I had to move off to Roseburg, Oregon with my dad.

I graduated from high school.

I've got two years of sobriety and I'm 17 years old.

I got a high school diploma on my back pocket,

and I thought after two years of sobriety,

I was only busing tables at Denny's.

And I felt like I should have been at least a CEO, you know?

And so displeased with my progress, I looked at Cindy

and I thought, "Here is my gauge on Cindy."

Still shallow, folks.

By the way, that shallowness has never left.

46 years later, I'm still pretty shallow.

But I looked at my sister Cindy

and my gauge on her was that she was always busy.

And when she left home, she went and joined this group

over here on the west side of Los Angeles

called the Pacific Group.

And my judgment on her was that she never had a dollar

in her purse.

She was always busy, but she smiled a lot.

That was my gauge on my sister.

My brother, on the other hand,

went and joined the United States Navy.

And my gauge on my brothers,

he always had that sailor cash in his pocket.

He had short hair and he never smiled.

So when it came my turn to be displeased

at how much my progress was in Alcoholics Anonymous,

I went, "Which one do I follow?"

'Cause I follow one of the two all the time.

'Cause I have no self-worth, no self-esteem.

It's easier to make friends with Cindy's friends.

It's easier to make friends with my brother Mike's friends

instead of me trying to go get my own friends.

And so I just looked at them

and I remember those three gauges on each one of them.

And so I went for the pocket full of cash.

'Cause I thought, "Well, cash?

"I can get a smile on my face, you know?

"I can act like I'm busy."

So I went and joined the United States Navy

with two years of sobriety.

And I'm here to tell you,

you can join the military with two years of sobriety,

do four years in there,

and come out with six years of sobriety.

It is possible, it's hard, but it's possible.

And I tell you that story because while I was in the Navy,

I was able to go to 10 different countries.

And I've been to meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous

in 10 different countries.

I'm the guy that I know I can call up central office

in New York and say, "My name's Marty, I'm an alcoholic.

"I'm in Singapore."

And they would always give me a name and phone number

of no matter which port I went to,

they'd give me a name and a phone number.

And I'd call up that so-and-so and say,

"Hey, I'm here with the 7th Fleet

"and I'd like to get to a meeting."

And they would always come by and pick me up

and take me to meetings.

So I've been to meeting 10 different countries.

I've been to meetings where I don't even know

if I went to a meeting, to tell you the truth,

'cause they spoke a different language.

My example is I went to a meeting in Busan, Korea.

And I walked in a little bitty room,

half of the size of this room,

and there's five Korean guys in there.

And I don't even know if it was a meeting.

It was at a church, it was the only room that was lit up.

And I walked in and they had a thick blue book

and they had a thin blue book.

And I thought that was the big book and the 12 and 12.

But it was written in Korean language.

So I don't know for a fact if that was the big book

and 12 and 12.

And they were drinking tea and I thought tea, coffee,

tomato, tomato, whatever.

And so I sat into this meeting

and they were speaking in Korean and I don't speak Korean.

I speak English and they didn't speak English.

But one of the guys got done sharing,

think he shared, I don't know.

And when in Southern California,

when somebody gets done sharing, what do we do?

So I'm the only one clapping in the room.

Oh, I guess they didn't clap in Korean.

You know, so the next guy shared it.

I clapped again.

Oh, they didn't clap.

So I think they all five got done sharing

because all five heads just turned and looked at me.

Oh, must be my turn to share.

So I shared in English.

And when I got done sharing,

all five Korean guys looked at each other

and went, yeah, they clap for the American, you know.

And so I've been to a meeting,

I've been to a meeting in Bayran,

which is right next to Iran, back in the '80s.

It was not okay to talk about alcohol in public

'cause alcohol is illegal.

If you get caught with any type of alcohol offense,

they cut off your right hand

'cause that's sentencing you to death

'cause their Muslim belief is really strong.

The only reason you use your left hand

is go to the bathroom.

So if they cut off your right hand,

they're sentencing you to death.

So we were instructed to not get drunk out in public,

not to talk about alcohol.

But what I did is I called the central office in New York

and said, hey, I'm going to Bayran.

And they gave me one name and one phone number.

And I called this guy up, not knowing what was going on,

but I called him from a pay phone.

I says, hey, my name is Marty, I'm an alcoholic.

I got your number from the central office in New York,

in the United States.

And he says, what's the pay phone number you're at?

I rattled it off to him.

And he says, yeah, I'm him.

And then we got disconnected.

I thought, that's weird.

And then the phone rings back.

So I picked it up because I'm the only one standing there.

He says, hi.

He said, you Marty?

I says, yeah.

He says, I'm Mike.

We just called.

I went, okay, cool.

I says, I'm trying to get to a meeting.

He says, we meet every ninth day

'cause we can't meet the same time, same place,

week in and week out.

I went, really?

Okay.

And then our phone got disconnected again.

And then he called me up the third time.

And he says, by the way, he says,

our phone calls are all monitored over here.

And because we're going to be talking about

what we shouldn't be talking about,

which was alcohol and Alcoholics Anonymous.

He says, every one of our phone conversations at the max

will be a minute and 37 seconds.

And then I've got to hang up.

Oh, that's why we kept getting disconnected.

It turned out to be a very choppy conversation, you know,

'cause he'd tell me a little bit and hang up.

He'd call me right back and tell me a little bit

more than hang up.

So I was supposed to meet him

outside of the American Red Cross building.

And we were going to stand on the curb together,

not acknowledge each other.

And he was going to run downstairs, open the door,

run inside and slam the door shut.

And then I was supposed to give him 30 seconds.

And then I can run downstairs, open the door,

get inside, slam the door shut.

So I did exactly that.

And I said, what was that about?

He says, they can't know we're meeting.

So I've been to a meeting in Iran

where it was illegal to go to a meeting, you know.

I 12-stepped because I became the counselor

on drug and alcohol abuse on the ship that I was on.

I became the counselor because I was the only person sober

on that whole boat, you know.

And I must have done,

in the three and a half years I was on that boat,

I must have done 50 or 60 12-step calls

on guys that got in trouble behind alcohol and drugs.

And none of them ever stayed so.

And I was discouraged, man.

I mean, I was really discouraged.

And I get my very last phone call from the captain.

I was a short timer,

which means I only had weeks left in the United States Navy.

And I get my last call from the captain says,

hey, you need to talk so-and-so out of B Division.

He missed ships moving and you got to do your magic.

And I'm like, okay.

And I'm just like,

I don't want to do another one of these 12-step calls

'cause none of them ever worked.

So I went to the pier and I called my sponsor.

He didn't pick up his phone.

Back then we didn't have phone machines.

There's no answering service.

You just let it ring forever.

And they either answered or they didn't.

And so I called them up and he didn't answer his phone.

Next person in grade to call up is my father.

I mean, he has three years more than I do.

So I called up my father.

He didn't answer neither.

So the next great person that calls, my sister, Cindy.

I called her up and he says, Cindy,

I got to do another one of these 12-step calls

and none of them ever worked.

And she said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What do you mean none of them ever worked?

I'm like, yeah, now these guys have stayed sober.

She says, are you still sober?

I'm like, yes.

And she says, then every single one of them worked.

And I thought, you bet.

I mean, you, you bad person, you know?

So I had to go back and do that 12-step call.

And I've only got a couple minutes left.

And I want to tell you a couple of things.

I, like I said, I did 50 or 60 of these 12-step calls

and none of them ever stayed sober.

But now that we have a Zoom presence,

I have literally spoken all over the world.

And I have now ran into five guys

I spoke to 40 years ago when I was in the Navy.

And they would yell my name on the Zoom meeting

that I was speaking at.

I spoke in Atlanta, Georgia.

And this guy started yelling, Marty, Marty, Marty.

So who are you?

'Cause none of us look the same.

We're all 40 years older.

Most, most of us guys look pregnant, you know?

And so I went, yeah, this is Marty, what's up?

And he says, you don't remember me.

He says, I was on the, on the USS Cook with you

40 something years ago.

And you tried to take me to AA.

And I wanted nothing with what you had to offer.

And I'm here to tell you, I got nine years of sobriety.

'Cause when I hit bottom, I knew where to go.

See, and all I did was planted a seed.

So my sister is right

that every one of these 12-step calls work.

So I have anywhere from nine years

to 20 something years sober of guys I talked to 40 years ago.

And to me, that's pretty cool.

So if you're sitting in this meeting tonight

and you think you're not doing much, you just don't know.

You might be sitting next to somebody who just,

I don't know, digs your presence,

likes your beanie cap or whatever the deal is.

But whatever you do, don't get a beanie cup like David F.

I think he's on a relapse.

He's wearing a New York beanie cap.

Show him on you, David.

And I got out of the Navy.

I met a girl in a Pacific group.

We got married, had a couple kids together.

One of my confidants is my buddy Wayne.

And I went through a rough, rough time.

At a week from hell, me and this girl had two kids together.

And my son got jumped and beaten so badly

he needed facial reconstructive surgery.

It was on Monday.

On Tuesday, I found out I was gonna be losing

office building for the family business.

On Wednesday, oh, time's up.

On Wednesday, I was charged

with two felony counts of tax evasion.

On Thursday, I learned that we were gonna lose

the house that we'd been living in for 12 years.

And then on Friday, my wife announced a divorce

after 18 and a half years of marriage.

That's just one hell of a week.

And I called my buddy Wayne.

And the last one was, hey, my wife left me too.

And all he said was, thank God.

He said that was a bad relationship

from the minute I met her, you know?

And that's why we have friends in AA folks.

They pick up on stuff.

So I'll end with this because my time's out,

or at least Jojo thinks my time is out.

I was told by Ben I get to talk

as long as it took me to drive here.

But it took me three hours and 20 minutes to be entered.

And he's cutting me off way too early.

But I'll end with this.

I don't know what everybody's solution is.

And sometimes I don't even know what my solution is.

That's why I still have a sponsor.

But it reminds me of a story of a guy

that was an Alcoholics Anonymous who's a pharmacist.

And his pharmacy started doing good.

So he went out and hired his first employee,

a guy out of a meeting, a noontime meeting,

'cause that's where unemployed people are, is at Newners.

And so he went out and got his first employee.

And so the pharmacist went up to the pharmacy

the very next day, and it was already lit up.

The open sign's blinking,

and people are walking around and said, "The pharmacy."

And he's like, "Hey, this is pretty cool."

He walked in, so I saw a guy leaning

just heavily up against the wall.

And he acknowledged him, and he walked back to the pharmacy,

and there's this newcomer.

Big old smile on his face, and the pharmacist says,

"Hey, you opened up early."

And he says, "Yes, sir."

He says, "I was so grateful that you gave me a job,

"I thought I'd open up early for you."

The pharmacist says, "That's great, but what's wrong

"with the guy leaning heavily up against the wall

"by the front door?"

The newcomer says, "Well, sir, he came in for a cough,

"and I couldn't get ahold of you."

And the pharmacist says, "What'd you do?"

The newcomer says, "Well, I gave him a whole bottle

"of laxatives."

And the pharmacist says, "You idiot,

"you can't treat a cough with laxatives."

Newcomer says, "You wanna bet he's afraid to cough."

So, you know, that was just his solution.

Like I said, I don't know what yours is,

and I barely know what mine is,

but it seems like if I do a little bit of prayer meditation,

a little bit of reading a big book,

a little bit of sponsoring, a little bit of being sponsored,

a little bit of commitments, a little bit of writing,

I end up with a great life, thank you.