Brian's Journey: From Early Alcohol Exposure to 31 Years Sober

- My name's Brian, I'm an alcoholic.

- Hi Brian.

- I'm truly grateful to be here

in this medium of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I absolutely love Alcoholics Anonymous.

I tell you, Alcoholics Anonymous does for me slowly

what alcohol used to do for me quickly.

When I sat down here tonight,

I was like, it was one of those days.

I hope there's a good speaker tonight, I really do.

I'd like to thank Ben for having me come out.

I'd like to thank Dave for referring me.

My sponsor, I have a sponsor.

I have a home group, it's USR Group.

My sobriety date is September 17th, 1992.

It's not my first sobriety date,

and today I hope it's my last.

Like I said, I love Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

And I can tell you, 31 years ago

when I walked into rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,

you would have told me, I love Alcoholics Anonymous.

I told you, you lost your mind.

I thought it was the worst thing that happened to me.

I thought my life was over.

Coffee cups and people dressed in suits.

I got sober in Pacific group.

People dressed like this regularly.

And these aren't my people, that's the police.

You know, and I'm a daily drinker.

I'm not a binger.

Once I start, something's gotta stop.

You know, I needed a drink at birth.

I had to wait until I was two.

And I don't remember anything about it.

But when I came to my mother, 24, 25 years, no, she's 24.

I came to her and said, I've been drinking every day

for the last 10 years, I need help.

I've been using drugs every day for the last eight years.

I need help.

And she goes, I knew you were an alcoholic at the age of two.

And I looked at her puzzle.

She goes, the lady offered you a glass, a sip of wine.

She walked out of the room and you downed the glass.

She walked back in, saw her glass was empty,

refilled it, walked out, I downed it again.

And apparently I continued to do it until I passed out

and she had to carry me home.

And that's at two.

Now I didn't say that there.

I'm sure I wasn't saying, damn, I wanna get drunk tonight.

You know, I just had a natural attraction to alcohol.

When I was three, four years old, I get sick

and my mom would make me a hot toddy.

Now I can't tell you what's in a hot toddy.

But all I know is I was sick a lot, you know?

And I learned at a young age,

never tell doctors what you're thinking.

'Cause I did that at age seven.

And what happened was the way that,

actually it was age six.

And what happened was when I was four years old,

I cut off my thumb.

They sewed it back on though.

And when I was five, right before we were in kindergarten,

I broke my arm.

Well, the neighbors broke my arm for me,

but that's another story.

And so I would have to sit on the bench in first grade

with my, in my sling with my cast.

And all the kids were on the jungle gym having fun.

I wanted to go on the jungle gym.

Now kids are cool,

especially I was smaller than everybody else.

And they would pick on me.

And so they would make fun of me

because I couldn't go on the jungle gym

and everyone else in the class could.

'Cause that was the big thing.

When you're in kindergarten and go to first grade

and you get to go on the big field

and they're sliding down the pole

and I wanted to slide down the pole.

I wasn't allowed to.

I'm just sitting there on the bench on recess every day.

And as I'm sitting there,

I decided one day to get up and go up there.

Teacher starts blowing her whistle.

I started sliding down the pole.

All the kids are going, "Go, go, go, go."

And I'm going down the pole.

Teacher's screaming at me.

'Cause I'm not supposed to be on the pole.

Get down the pole.

Teacher grabs me by the ear,

drags me to the nurse's office,

drags me to the principal.

Next thing you know,

I'm in the doctor's office being put on red light.

And it made me shake.

So now kids are picking on me more.

And so by the time I was nine years old,

there's these older kids on the block

and they were drinking beer and they were, you know,

had cool cars called lowriders.

People were scared of them.

They weren't getting picked on.

And if I knew if I'd come part of,

I won't get picked on either.

Plus they're drinking beer like grownups

and I want to be a grownup.

And I remember we snuck upstairs

and they were, their older brothers were selling wheat.

And they, this is back in the seventies when it was lids.

Some of you older folks remember lids.

And for $10, you get a big bag of damn seeds

and good old Colombian gold.

And I rolled this, we were rolling up these joints.

We're little kids, so they look a little bit like,

sort of like that little tiny joint,

Cheech broke out and Cheech and Chong, you know,

it was all cricket and little.

And Chong starts laughing at them.

Well, that's the joint and I'm smoking it.

And they gave me a tall can of Budweiser.

I'm sitting there and I'm like going to lay, you know,

and I think I'm cool.

So next thing they do is they, you know,

if you want to become a part of it,

they beat you up for a certain amount of time.

And that's what they did.

And then they told me they loved it.

So I got a, I was wearing tough skins

and it's hard to look cool in marooned tough skin.

But I got my first pair of Levi's.

And back then they were, I had really skinny legs.

So they were super baggy and I'd freeze them puppies.

And I only had one pair.

So I wore them every day and they got kind of funky.

But I was going to school, my white t-shirt,

my hush puppies, I'm thinking I'm cool.

And I'm trying to straighten my curly hair,

combing it back and I'm going to school.

And someone said, where are you from?

And I told them, I got beat up.

I'm like, this isn't working out.

So I go back, I'm going to take a different way home.

I get beat up again.

And so I go tell my homeboys what's going on.

And they said, why didn't you,

why did you let them beat you up?

And they beat me up.

And I go, this isn't working out.

And so what happened was, you know,

we're sitting there, we were drinking when we could

and get high when we could and do little things.

I'm 10, 11 years old.

And I met this one kid.

He was tough, really tough for the same gang.

And people were scared of him.

He would beat people up for us and it was all good.

And then one day he's working on his brother's car

and this other gang came by and kicked out the jack

and crushed his head.

And I knew at 12 years old that I can get,

that guy died and got killed that easily.

And he was that tough.

My wussy fell.

This is not gonna work.

And at the same time,

my friends got me involved in all this.

The whole family, you know,

knew they were gang banging and moved them all to Mexico.

And so I was there by myself.

And so skateboarding was coming out since the '70s,

mid '70s now and got a skateboard.

First, you know, tail tap, kryptonic wheels,

urethane tires are out and I'm skateboarding

and the skate parks opened and I'm skating away.

And I had this other friend, came up to me, my best friend.

He goes, I found this money.

And we go up to his uncle's house and there's this drawer.

He pulls it out and there's stacks

and stacks and stacks of cash.

They were telling him, I don't know what they were doing,

but they had money.

And we take 20s and 50s, they never knew.

And we had new skateboards and bicycles.

We'd buy butt every day.

And I'm 13 years old now and it's summertime

and we're smoking a joint and we're all good.

And we were talking about something happened day before.

And his sister goes, look at you.

And I didn't know what the hell she was talking about.

Didn't remember what happened, what she was talking about.

And she goes, you're 13 years old

and you're already forgetting stuff.

What are you gonna be like

when you're 18 smoking that stuff?

Scared the hell out of me.

I'm never gonna get high again, I'm not gonna drink again.

Now, I tell you when I leave tonight,

I'm not gonna drink and I'm not gonna get off.

I am as confident as I possibly can be.

Because for 31 years, I have not taken a drink.

I was that confident that day

that I was never gonna drink and never gonna use again.

I quit smoking cigarettes, I quit everything.

And within three months, what happened was,

my neighbor came over.

They're kind of watching me from my parents'

sort of Christmas shopping, it's December.

And they were drinking Bacardi and Coke.

I was at their house and they're grownups

and I wanted to be a grownup.

Yeah, I drink Bacardi and Coke, I drink it down.

And I remember this like it was yesterday.

I remember sitting in my, going back home to my house.

My parents not home, watching football on a Saturday.

College, it was December,

it was some minor bowl game or something,

right before Christmas.

And I thought, if that much alcohol made me feel that good,

how much would a lot of alcohol make me feel like?

And I walked into the kitchen.

In that kitchen was fifths of different kinds of alcohol.

My mom's an alcoholic.

I say that because she drank every day of her frickin' life.

And I grabbed a clear bottle.

Now the Bacardi and Coke burned when it went down.

But when I grabbed that clear bottle, which was vodka,

I went back on, so then I grabbed the gin

and did the same thing.

I grabbed the tequila, did the same thing.

By the time I got to the fourth bottle,

I started stumbling backwards when I tried to put it back.

Now I felt cool and I wanted to show 'em how shrunk I was.

So I'm all proud, stumbling back to them.

And I hear one go, "Look at me, he's drunk."

And the other one goes, "No, he's not drunk.

"He's just faking, we just gave him one drink."

Goes, "No, look at him, he's messed up."

And I'm looking at 'em, I'm kinda like, you know,

swaying a little bit there.

And one of 'em trips me just because they have fun

with the drunk kid.

Boom, I go down, I get up, they do it again.

But they soon realize that they're supposed to be watching

me and my mom's gonna be home soon.

Now they're panicking.

Now I remember being put in a shower.

I remember coming out of the shower and throwing up.

I remember them giving me coffee and throwing up.

I remember them being put back in the shower.

I remember their sister screaming at me,

their mother screaming at me.

My mother's screaming at them.

Their mother's screaming at my mother.

Everyone's screaming at everybody.

And what's happening is I'm going in and out of a blackout

over a two-day period.

And I can tell you, I used to take mushrooms.

Love the mushrooms.

When I was 16 years old,

I decided to start doing everything.

And I took these mushrooms,

and I was on top of the Dover Building,

and they're filming a movie called Blue Thunder.

Some of you might have remembered it.

It's about a police helicopter.

Well, we didn't know they were filming Blue Thunder.

All I saw was four helicopters,

bright lights everywhere,

and I swore aliens were landing 'cause I was peaking.

I took off running down the street as my friend,

and he was running after me, and I swore

I was never gonna take mushrooms again.

Just take acid.

Took eight hits of two hits of four-way black dragon,

which equals eight hits.

I was playing with shredded money,

throwing it in the air, watching the trail.

Started coming out of the wall.

It started attacking me.

I stopped taking acid.

I used to smoke PCP in high school, 12th grade.

My boys would come get me and show a pass to the teacher

or say, "I gotta go to the dean's office,"

and we'd go straight to my car

and go score down in South LA.

One day, I smoked three sherms and a super cool,

or actually three super cools and a sherm,

and cars are making laps, cars are making rides,

cars are stopping, cars are going.

It became a car honked its horn,

and that was just way too much to handle.

I ran and hit under my car for three hours

as people in school would look under the car

and point at me and laugh.

I stopped PCP that day.

But at 13 years of age, when I almost died

of alcoholic poisoning,

the only thing that came to my mind was,

"Next time, I just won't mix it."

And that's what makes me an alcohol.

Alcohol went with everything.

Going to the movies, a little bit there.

A little bottle, a little half pint, 151.

Movie's better.

If I'm going to a keg party,

I gotta bring a six-pack and sit in my car

and drink down that six-pack before I go into the party.

If I'm going somewhere on a date,

I gotta be in a blackout practically.

I'm scared to death, but alcohol takes away that fear.

And when I was 16 years old, I made a conscious decision.

People in high school started trying to figure out

what they're gonna do in life.

Go to college, join the military.

Mine, I wanna be a stoner.

I wanna party.

I'm gonna party for the rest of my life.

And the way that all came about,

'cause I was in 10th grade,

I was still trying to be good

'cause I was still getting over

and freaking almost drinking myself to death,

and I'm trying to put it together and do the right things

in case you'll drink here, in case you'll drink there.

And a friend of mine said,

"I found the greatest thing in the world,

"and I'm coming over, picking you up in 20 minutes."

Went up the mall, broke out a bindle.

They go, "This is Peruvian flake."

Broke out lines, and I did 'em.

And I didn't really enjoy it,

but for some reason after that, I started praying for it.

I literally, "God, please let me get cocaine today."

And the great thing about cocaine is you can drink.

It goes so well with it.

It goes perfect, 'cause you could drink longer.

You don't get binge, you don't get sick.

You can just drink.

You have a hangover, you do a line, you can have a drink,

and then you're good to go the next day,

'cause I'm a daily drinker.

And so I did that until I was about 90 pounds.

And what happened was I was getting out of control.

It really was.

It was just, I was smoking it now on a daily basis,

and things are going on.

And I moved out to, moved to Las Vegas

for my first attempt.

And the reason I went to Vegas

is because, one, my partner in construction,

he was moving to Vegas.

The other was, at the time,

it was a felony just to have a seed of pot,

and it was five years they were giving people.

I don't know that anybody actually got five years for a seed,

but that's what I was told when I went there.

And so I didn't do any cocaine in Vegas.

But what I did do, my mom gave me an American Express card.

And every single day that I was there,

I'd buy a case of beer on my way home from work.

And every day I would need to buy another case,

'cause I just pound beers until I go to sleep.

And some nights we would go out to Sam's Club Casino,

and I would sit there at the nickel slots

and drink White Russians, love White Russians.

And so what I realize now, when I was able to get sober,

because a lot of times,

'cause when I came here and weighing 95 pounds at then,

drugs seemed to be the bigger problem,

but alcohol was the root.

Alcohol is what caused everything else to happen,

all the spiraling that came out of control.

So once I realized that, it helped me stay sober.

Because when I first came into the 12 step program,

I went to CA first.

Never could stay sober.

I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and couldn't stay sober.

Our 10 minute speaker, he did a great job.

I too, chronic relapser, he said he 10, I'm at 15.

My first sponsor would tell me go home and get,

in this sobriety, would tell me go home and get your chips,

we need to play a poker game.

And what happened for me was, I was with this girl,

she was dealing, and we would party together.

And one day, she went to go score, and she went upstairs.

I'm in my car, still up there, still up there.

Bitch is getting hot, I'm cussing.

She's still up there, I'm tired of coming down.

20 minutes, 30 minutes.

Oh, that's messed up.

I'm going home, pissed off.

I get home, phone rings, it's her.

About an hour later, click call, civil brand.

She went up there, and DEA opened the door,

and just snatched her up and arrested.

That's why she was stuck up there.

Now, it's just another day in the life.

I've been arrested, my friends have been arrested.

I've been shot at nine times.

I've been twice held at gunpoint torture,

begging for, trying to figure that last sentence,

that one sentence that will stop them from killing me.

And I didn't think much of this, but when she got out,

she said, "Yeah, my celly's getting out tomorrow.

"We need to go pick her up."

I said, "I'm not picking her up.

"You're lucky I picked you up."

And she goes, "No."

I said, "No, we're not doing it."

So now, our next day, we're at my house,

and we're partying in my bedroom, and phone rings,

it's her, and she had a eighth of cocaine

and a case of beer.

I don't know about any of you,

but I couldn't get in my car fast enough.

I was in love.

She had what I needed.

And she came to my house, and I lived at my parents' house,

and so I moved her in.

And she was the first girl I met that drank like I did.

We would fight over that last beer on a six pack.

And we would argue all the time about going to go,

how to pull scams and get, she was great.

And then one day, her friends took her away,

and I was devastated.

And I said a prayer, "God, please help me."

And a voice came in my head, "Sure, make your life better."

That's when I went to my mother,

and told her I'd been using drugs for eight,

drinking for 10, and needed help.

And she went into a rehab, absolutely miserable,

hated it, but I loved being sober.

First time I ever had more than three days and years,

I had to be in jail for that.

And I felt good, and I got my 60-day chip.

I remember I got my 30-day chip.

When I got my 30-day chip, I remember 10 years before that,

my friend got out of rehab, got a 30-day chip,

and showed it to me, and I laughed at it,

and go, "Who can't get 30 days?"

There I am 10 years later, finally getting a 30-day chip.

And what happened was, she came back, I left the rehab,

but I wasn't gonna drink, and I wasn't gonna use,

just like I tell you I'm not going to the rehab.

And what happened was, she, one day, after I got 60 days,

and I had 64 days to be exact, she goes,

"You have 64 days, you can drink just one."

And there's three of us, and we got a six pack.

Now, I'm not a mathematical genius,

but I do know if I drink two before you drink one,

I get three.

Simple, man.

But I said I was gonna drink two.

Now, I never tried this before, controlling my drinking.

You know, drinking just two is something you tell the police,

it's not something you do.

And I'm sitting there, looking, just, they're talking,

they're having, me and my girlfriend and a friend,

my friend, are having a conversation.

I'm thinking about these tricks,

but I'm down my first one, I'm on my second,

trying to get that second down.

They're alcoholics, too, and I didn't pull it off.

And I remember my skin was falling.

But I'm gonna, I control them.

I only drink two.

Buddy of mine got out of the Army the next, that day,

and said, you know, I told him I don't party no more.

He goes, "You can have one."

I said, "Yeah, I had two today."

So, yeah, I could do that.

We went to the bar, we spent $260 at the bar,

$480 at the crack house.

The sun's coming up, the birds are screaming,

and there I am, hiding behind a curtain

in a motel room, going, "Shh," once again.

And I went in and out of alcoholics anonymous.

I wanted to be sober, I got a sponsor.

I called them occasionally.

I got commitments, and once in a while,

I actually did them, but I'd go out.

I get about 30 days, I go insane.

I am restless, irritable, and discontent.

And the longer I'm sober, the more I hate you.

The longer I'm sober is I want to murder someone.

I can't live like this.

And I got to the point where I could no longer live sober,

and I could no longer live drunk,

and I decided I'm gonna end it all.

And I went to a friend's house to get a gun

to blow my brains out, and he wasn't home.

I figured, you know what,

I'm gonna go get a 12 back and a 20.

Once again, the sun's coming up, the birds are screaming,

and what am I gonna do, and I call my sponsor.

And he met me with me, and now I have three days.

I'm at the Friday Night Men's Stag Pacific Group,

in this guy with hair that looked like one of the Smurfs.

He stood straight up, about five feet tall,

gay as can be, the opposite of any human being

I'd ever even speak to.

He looked at me and said, "You're gonna die."

And he walked away.

He walked up to me again and said,

"You're gonna die," and walked away.

So he started walking towards me again.

I'm just gonna sock him in the mouth.

That's my plan.

Now, he said something to me that I will never forget,

and it's a secret I was never gonna tell anybody.

He said, "I will walk you out of the gates of hell,

"but I will not walk back there with you."

See, I swore that I'd died and gone to hell,

and hell was here on earth.

And I'm picking up the tab

for something I did horrifically in a previous life.

I thought of myself as the biggest piece of crap there was.

And the truth of the matter was, I am.

I was.

And I said, "How?

"How are you gonna do this?"

He said, "I'm gonna take you to the Big Book alcohol tonight

"and just come to my house tonight.

"We'll play Scrabble, and we'll talk about it."

So me and him, these two lesbians,

went to his house, played Scrabble.

And we sit down, and he said,

"Now, whatever you do, don't lie,

"'cause we always can tell when a newcomer's lying,

"their lips are moving."

(laughing)

And so the first thing I did was make up a word

that didn't exist to put on the Scrabble board,

and I got 'em.

I said, "You know, it's right here in the dictionary."

Kid, look.

"Okay, we bullied you."

And I'm thinking, "You have to change it.

"You can tell when a newcomer's lying, huh?"

'Cause that's just one thing.

When I was under,

well, I never got convicted of a felony.

I was good at it.

Sobriety, I can't lie at all.

My first year of sobriety, go to your yard, Clancy's house,

and whenever I tell a lie,

my sponsor would make me go up to that person and go,

"You just lied to him.

"Go up to him and apologize and tell him that you lied."

And I got tired of doing that, and I stopped lying.

And what would happen in the beginning

when I would tell the truth,

my stomach would hurt, the nervous feeling.

But then, eventually, it stopped hurting

when I told the truth.

It started hurting when I would tell a lie,

and my life was starting to change

through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

No, I would hear the speaker talk about writing letters

to her father, and I'm sure I'm not gonna be that.

I put my parents through hell.

I did have police kick in the door.

I've come home with bullet holes through my car.

They've seen me run out the door

after people with baseball bats.

They've seen me hit people with sticks.

They've seen gunshots where I'm diving.

It got to the point where my mom knew what, collect call,

what county jail was calling,

'cause back then, they had their own operators in the '80s.

And she'd go, "Oh, it's wayside,"

'cause of my friends when they get locked up with common.

When my mother died, eight years of sobriety in my arms,

she told me how proud she was of me, how much she loved me,

how she wouldn't trade me with anyone else.

What a great son I am.

And that's because of alcohol, it's anonymous.

My father died during COVID.

His entire family called me and said,

"What a wonderful father, what a wonderful son I was."

How good care, how I took good care of my father.

'Cause he, the reason I live in the valley now

is because of him.

He had open heart surgery

and I had to bring him somewhere flat.

So I got a house on the valve.

Before I moved him in, when I was about 13 years sober,

because he wasn't able to take care of himself anymore,

'cause he had dementia.

And when he moved in with me,

I believe he was like a stupid teenager by the time

he passed away, it was like he was a three month old baby.

And I lived through it with all that with him

because of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, everything I achieved in life,

everything I have is 'cause of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A lot of people say, and I hear it all the time,

"I gotta take care of my family.

"I gotta take care of you, I gotta go get a job."

I recently changed careers.

Today, I had a busy day, I was supposed to.

I was asked to speak.

I immediately dropped everything for this

because Alcoholics Anonymous is the most important thing

in my life.

I don't say no, if I wanna do it or don't wanna do it,

does it, it's not in the equation.

If someone comes up to me and asks me something,

I will do it, you know.

I got Luis staying with us, he's probably the best.

And I've had, when I got divorced after my first marriage,

I was devastated.

And what I did was got really active in Alcoholics Anonymous

and I moved a bunch of newcomers in with me.

I had three in the backyard,

I had two on my floor in the living room,

I had other bedrooms and I didn't do it to make money.

It wasn't a profit thing.

If you had 20 bucks, great.

If you had no money, great.

Whatever you need, you need food.

Here, I never locked my doors.

Any newcomer could walk in.

Anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous is welcome in the house.

And I can tell you how the countless people,

I can't even put in, so many,

I can't even put a number on it.

He's by far the quietest.

You know, in fact, I was thinking about it.

You know, I've sponsored many, many people

in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I had one guy, I got him to 30 days.

I said, "We're taking a chip tonight."

I said, "No, I got 30 days and I'm taking the day out."

And I said, "Dude, you gotta come to the meeting tonight."

37 minutes later, he was arrested.

Left my house and got arrested, 37 minutes later.

Came to my house the following Monday,

which is a little bail slip.

Said, "Damn man, you were right."

Yeah.

I had another guy actually literally sentenced to me

from Missouri, suspended 10 year sentence.

All he had to do was work at Rhinotech

and live at my house and go to seven meetings a week.

Simple task, that's better in 10 years, right?

Not to him.

He goes, he got about 45 days and goes,

"Dude, I just can't do it, I need to get high."

And I say, "You know what's gonna happen if you get high?"

And I'm driving, he left the house, I'm driving.

I see him hiding behind a tree 'cause he sees me,

like creeping, and I shake my head.

I don't see him again, then 10 years later,

I'm at the Wednesday night meeting

and he comes walking up to me, "Remember me?"

I go, "Yeah, where you been?"

Prison in Missouri.

Another guy, I told him to take a commitment

at Thursday night.

I go, he wouldn't do it, he didn't show up at Friday.

Saturday, I go speak at Twin Towers

and he's freaking sweeping in blues.

I go, "What happened?"

He goes, "I should've took the commitment."

You know, I have seen, done so much

because of alcoholics, and I've just been able to travel,

have an amazing life with an amazing life, you know?

Louis says, "You've been with me, do we fight?"

No, 'cause of alcoholics, and I'm just like,

"Well, like, we've been together for, what is it,

20 years now?"

So we're trying to snap every now and then,

but it's just natural.

But I love her more now than I did 20 years ago.

She's the best thing that ever happened to me.

And the amazing part about her,

I'm gonna tell this quick story and then I'll be done,

is I used to party with her brother.

Her brother's now schizophrenic.

He, her brother was, he's just a bumbling idiot.

He was back then, but I was a bumbling idiot.

It got so bad for me that I was too low of a companion

to even hang out with him.

She wouldn't have anything to do with me, literally.

Like, just look at me in disguise.

Flash forward 'til I'm 13 years sober

and she's in love with me.

How does that happen?

Alcoholics anonymous.

Alcoholics anonymous is absolutely the greatest thing

that's ever happened to me in my life.

And I guarantee each and every one of you,

if you make alcoholics anonymous

the most important thing in your life,

within a year's time, you'll say,

alcoholics anonymous is the greatest thing

that's ever happened to you.

Thank you.