Aging, Self-Centeredness, and Sobriety: Tim's 40-Year Journey

Good evening, my name is Tim and I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad to be here tonight with you, glad to be

sober. Ben, thanks for inviting me down. I've been sober since November 16th 1985 and for that I'm

really grateful and genuinely surprised honestly. You know and there's some great things that come

as a result of having the gift of sobriety for that long but there's another side to it too and

that means I'm getting older and I mean I applied for medicare last week and I just I couldn't

believe it you know I just couldn't believe it and my my first thought was was I didn't realize

it wouldn't take very long to get this old and then my second thought was well it's been a good

life you know I went from filling out the medicare application to planning my own funeral so my mind

uh well I thank Alex for his for his talk you know I don't know Alex and I don't share a lot

of things in common with him but I identified with everything that he said you know in alcoholics and

illness we speak a universal language and I certainly identified with the feelings that

he was expressing because I had exactly the same types of feelings you know I find you know as far

back as I can remember I just felt like I was a tormented and tortured soul with not having any

idea why I just I did not know why and then my feelings completely consumed and you know it's

they consume me to a level where my where I just became what my feelings were and I had no idea

that this dynamic was going on I didn't know that you know the more that I tried to figure out what

was going on with me I knew there was something that was terribly wrong with me that didn't seem

to be wrong with other people and the more that I tried to figure it out and the more I thought

about it the deeper I got into all of it and the more distant and disconnected I got from from you

and from the world around me and from the experiences of life I became increasingly confused

and frustrated and it manifested itself with a great deal of fear and uncertainty and feelings

of inadequacy and ultimately just a desperate loneliness and without seeing any possible

solution and you know I've been to uh you know really some time before I came to realize really

what the root of those problems were I thought it was a result of the very difficult and chaotic

childhood uh but it turns out that's not the case at all turns out that I believe that I've had

those feelings because I am completely and totally self-centered I just am that's my natural state

and you know one of the worst things about being self-centered is you're the last person to know

you can't see it you cannot see it and uh and it's just an insidious thing about the disease

of alcoholism and you know to me it's more like uh you know self-centeredness or self being

self-absorbed you know because I will literally think about how I feel every waking moment you

know left to my own devices and that I will act according to those feelings and the problem with

that is is that when I get so lost in myself that when I lose that connection with others

at least my sense of identity I lose my place in life and I don't really recognize exactly what's

going on around me my my perceptions of reality are just a little bit off because I've lost that

connection with others and uh you know we talk about that alcoholism being a disease of perception

that's what it means to me this is that I get so lost in myself that I just just I'm just missing

that just a little bit and uh and for me when I drank alcohol that goes away it all goes away

almost instantly from everything that I'm looking for that connectedness with others uh is available

to me almost instantly and uh my understanding of the disease of alcohol is really centered on that

I believe that if I have those kinds of feelings and I drink alcohol and alcohol provides that kind

of solution then I belong in alcohol so and uh and so that's why I'm here because that's exactly

what happened and I started drinking I like to drink a lot and I ended up as I said it was

kind of very chaotic and troublesome childhood my dad was a Lutheran minister and ended up on

skid row as an alcoholic and you know my younger sister who died my mother had multiple marriages

and by the time I was 18 I figured we had moved 21 times you know it's just that kind of thing

it's just always place to place no stability always the new kid in town you know the whole

that whole thing and where it ultimately took me was in my early early 20s I ended up in Crested

Butte, Colorado now you end up in Crested Butte is a small ski resort town in central Colorado it's

a beautiful beautiful town and you know you only end up in a place like Crested Butte when you have

when you've gone to college you need to have a degree like I have you know I went to college and

I was able to graduate from college which was really surprising because at that point in my

life I had never been in one place for four years and had managed to stay in college for four years

I think mostly because of my junior year I decided to stop drinking seriously I don't know why I can't

explain it to you but I just I just did I was a terrible non-drinker by the way it's very

self-righteous about it you know I just we walk around just look at people like why are you wasting

your time you know being drunk like that you know you didn't want to be around me anyway I graduated

from college but I had trouble in college identifying what my major would be because like Alex

was talking about he's talking about chameleon you know I just didn't I didn't know I didn't know

what I wanted I always was trying to figure out what other people wanted for me and so I didn't

know what major to pick you know and then I sort of justified I was like well I don't can't really

decide on a major because you know if you have my level of intellect and understanding you can't

possibly limit yourself to anything so I made up my own major they let you do that at this school

it's called an independent major and and so my major was social change through human forms of

expression tell me what that means or maybe I would appreciate knowing because um but I do

have a degree in that and as you might imagine there's not a lot of jobs available in that field

and so you end up in a place like Crested Butte which is just kind of where people go to

you know ski and hang out Crested Butte was a wonderful place when I got there and it was

you know I always felt like I had missed the 60s and Crested Butte was like it was like reliving

the 60s or what I had imagined it to be I mean it was just a strong sense of community and

this feeling of family and everybody's drinking and partying and carrying on and uh and I just

loved it I loved that feeling I love that small town environment friends that I was making and uh

and it was great and I got there uh sort of a weird sequence of events when I got there

and I'm going to say it was late February getting a mark something like that of uh 1981 I guess it

was and um I you know I didn't have an address you know it was the kind of place where as long as you

had friends you had a place to live you know just sleep on the couches or the floor with whoever

might have me and it was just that kind of thing I didn't have a place um but what I didn't realize

was that uh you know in these ski resort areas they have what's called mud season and that's

where the scariest shuts down and everybody leaves I mean they're literally like 90 percent of the

town just leaves and they plan for it they save their money and they go they're tired of the

winter and they go to exotic warm places and you know that kind of thing and I mean I felt like the

you know kid at the park where everybody went home to have dinner like hey where's everybody going

you know I didn't get that message because I you know I had been living one day at a time long

before I came to alcohol synonymous and I was living one day at a time there in Crested Butte

but I was fortunate in that um you know a guy was nice enough I can't even remember his name but he

was nice enough to let me house it for him so I had a place to stay so my dog Blaze and I moved

into his house and you know it really I think back on it it was amazing because there was like no

work I mean Crested is the kind of place that you just do whatever kind of work needs to be done to

get by and there was no work and I got on food stamps I saw my food stamp card from that I had

that block of government cheese and uh but somehow you know and all the you know so there's no work

the most of the bars were shut down a couple liquor stores so he managed to get drunk every

night and we can be exceptionally resourceful when we need to be anyway so the mud season lasted I

don't know about six weeks or so and then this guy came back and he wanted he wanted his house back

um which you know I don't know if I felt that was a real inconvenience for me that he came back and

so I had to come up with you know what my plan was going to be like well where where am I going to go

what am I going to do and uh you know I had you know I just had this feeling inside I just never

felt like like I was a man inside not at all and and I thought well you know I need to do something

that's really manly my next move has got to be manly it's got to be something that could really

impress the woman you know and so uh what I decided to do I gave it a lot of thought and I thought

well I'm just going to get a I'm going to get a tarp I'm going to string it up between two trees

you're kind of a lean to kind of thing and I could put pine boughs underneath there and you know I'll

I'll live under the tarp you know I used to say it was like oh I'll be like grizzly adams now it's

like the show alone you know it's like I would just be out there in the woods you know and I

thought that's that's a manly thing to do you know maybe maybe a stupid man but it's a manly thing

you know and so that was my plan and so I was out one night and uh with this woman Darlene and I

wanted to impress her with my plan and uh and so I kind of set her up to you know ask me well you

know what are you going to do uh so I said yeah I kind of move out of this house or social where

are you going to live and I said well I'm going to live under a tarp and she you know I always

say this but it's just so true for me it's like it's happened to me so many times and maybe it's

happened to you I don't know but where I have an idea and I just get stuck on the first like first

25 percent of the idea and I think about that part of it over and over and over again but I don't

seem to have the capacity to think it all the way through and I realized as this was coming out of

my mouth to Darlene that this may not be as good an idea as I thought it was and she agreed with

that by the way and she said she said well you can't live under a tarp it's 9 000 feet in the

rocky mountains I mean that's that's crazy just you can't you can't do that I said well you know

I can and uh she said no she said I tell you what she says I have a teepee and you can use it instead

well let me tell you something when you're looking at living under a tarp teepee sounds pretty good

and I had studied about an American Indian religion as part of that major and I thought

you know yeah to be out there and kind of like a loincloth you know and I just thought you know

the Indian religion was all kind of directions and circles and I felt so fractured inside and so

just meandering I thought yeah this is going to be really good you know I'm going to stop drinking

and I'm going to get healthy out there and I'm going to cut catch trout out of that that river

I set up next to the slate river I'm going to catch trout on that slate river and cook them over

in the open fire and I set up that teepee and I put shag carpeting inside and you know I just

thought yeah this is really this is really going to be it and uh and I thought you know I will

I will befriend the bear you know the deer will come eat from my hand and I thought you know the

women are going to come flocking out there but no doubt there's going to be a line into Tim's teepee

and it just didn't work out that way you might be surprised um here's what when you set up a teepee

you're supposed to strip all the bark off the poles you know then hold the teepee together

and the reason you do that is because when it rains if you don't strip the bark off the water

collects on the bark and it rains in your teepee well who could be bothered with that and so I

never uh I never scraped the bark off the off the teepee poles and it was the rainiest summer in like

10 years and it rained in my teepee all the time and I just I would lay there and I think god you

know how'd this happen again you know I'm just such a nothing ever works out for me it just

never works out for me no sense of personal responsibility or anything just me and my

wet dog blaze you know in the teepee and just thinking god I don't know how this how this

happened you know it just anyway and by the way I wonder about stuff like this if you're wondering

like well what about when you live in a teepee what about personal hygiene you know like I mean

that river is awfully it's it's melted snow so like what'd you do and uh well I'll tell you in

Crested Butte there's a place called Sunshine's Bathhouse and Sunshine's Bathhouse was a little

community place and uh it was co-ed and I mean it was full-on co-ed it was co-ed locker rooms

co-ed co-ed showers there's a big rock hot tub I mean it was co-ed and there was a lot of really

physically fit 20-somethings running around in there and I'll tell you what I don't think I've

ever been so clean in my life Sunshine's Bathhouse anyway I ended up moving out of the uh the bath

house or moving out of the teepee and um and the bath house into a place and I've done a lot of

different jobs I've worked as a logger and waiter and carpenter and shoveled snow off roofs and I

mean you just do whatever you have to do but I ended up with a with a job tending bar a place

called the grub stay and uh you know for a guy like me tending bar was the perfect job because

I basically just drank my way through every shift so I never missed I never missed a night

you know I was there all the time I make one for you one for me I you know I was the bartender

actually because I made the drinks the way I wanted to drink them you know and I would have

people all the time come back and ask me if I could put in a little bit more mixer in the drink

but uh anyway I my drinking got completely and totally out of control and uh you know

I was very much a blackout drinker I don't remember there's big swatches of time that I

don't remember I came across a photo a couple years ago of uh it was a party in somebody's

backyard and there was probably 35 people in this picture and at the time those people were like

family to me you know like everybody's like family to me in that town and uh and I looked at that

picture and I mean I recognized one person I didn't even recognize that people much less

remember their names it was a little unnerving to think about that but I just I just didn't

anyway I uh I just started to drink in a way that was a complete completely compulsively

and obsessively um I don't know how much I drank I drank I mean to me I don't know any

self-respecting alcoholic who really keeps track how much they drink I didn't want to know how much

I drank you know I wasn't measuring it believe me I just drank all every day as much as I could

and uh you know when you do that just bad things just start to happen to you and they they started

to happen to me and I remember really what uh I mean I got to the point where I just didn't feel

like I could do anything in life without taking a drink first I was completely possessed with that

idea I didn't have to make a phone call without taking a drink first I didn't think I could do

my laundry without taking a drink first the very first thing when I woke up in bed was to take a

drink the very first thing and I would drink it and it would come back up I would drink it down

again it would come back up my I could feel my body just rejecting the alcohol oh but I would

take another drink until it finally stayed out and I remember that very clearly how alcohol affected

at the end of my drinking was really what alcohol did to me physically that I remember more than

anything else because it was destroying my body and I knew it and I didn't care because to me I

could not imagine this life without taking a drink I just couldn't imagine it just didn't seem

possible to me I remember there was a guy that used to run around Crested Butte it was uh you know

he's the kind of guy that went around in town like that he was a self-proclaimed shaman his name was

Stephen and he came in my room one of my big goals in life at that time was to get to bed before the

sun came and uh I didn't meet that goal very often believe me so I would you know I'd go to bed and

be up all night and go to bed at nine o'clock in the morning and sleep all day and one of this

guy Stephen came into my room woke me up one day it's probably about 2 30 in the afternoon and I had

empty bottles all over the place there's dirty clothes everywhere I mean the room is trashed

and he came and he woke me up and uh and he looked at me and he said you're an alcoholic and my first

reaction was wow this guy really is click plants how do you know I didn't uh I brushed him aside

and anyway I ended up um I just remember my skin just crawling like how addicted I was to alcohol

physically and at night my legs were just involuntarily pound the bed and I was passing

blood and just vomit my own liver bottle every morning and this all just became it just all

became acceptable it's just how I lived my life and I ended up coming out to Southern California

at that time and in the summer of 1985 because when they go and get stuff those guys go live with

their moms and that's what I did and I came out here and I was here for a short time and

I was 26 years old and I ain't looking in the hospital because my liver just completely failed

it just shut down it could no longer alcohol had prohibited my liver to be able to function

normally anymore it just wouldn't do it and uh I remember I was in the hospital and

doctor came in he said you know if you continue to drink and I just looked me in the eye and I said

no let me tell you because you see I just couldn't I couldn't imagine life without a drink I just

couldn't imagine you know I was in there for a short period of time I was in there for three

days you know the fourth day I had a spiritual experience and stuff of my stuff followed the

doctors and just completely unrelated to our conversation I just blurted out I said I'm gonna

talk and there's nothing I've been wrestling with there's nothing I'd given any thought to

whatsoever it just came out of my mouth and he said uh I said can you look me in the eye and say

that I looked in the eye and said and like that that complete obsession and compulsion of drink

was gone it was listed I had been touched by the spirit there was no question I tell you I admire

those of you walk in here and ask for help because I'm not I don't have that kind of backbone I know

I'd rather drink myself to death than walk through that door and ask somebody to help and so I really

believe that's the only way that I could've gone so it's the only reason that I'm standing here

tonight and uh I got going on this program with folks and all this you know I went through the

12 steps and I listened to speakers like myself and I I heard all the spiritual attitudes and

stories of inspiration um and I'll be honest with you I go home at night and I lay in bed

with them I don't know what they're talking I don't know what they're talking about I don't

I mean I did the 12 steps what like where is it where is it I don't get it where is it I don't see

it and uh they understand what working this program they continue working the steps we're gonna what

are you talking about understanding I can look back on it now and realize that my sponsor at the

time had me working the steps without me realizing it because one thing that one of the first things

he did was through his direction he gave me a structure to my life and so my life was no longer

managed he was building at least the foundation through having a manageable life I didn't even

know it I didn't even know that that's what we're doing I've since come to understand how much

freedom there is not having to make too many choices everything I did not know that I did

not know that and I slowly started to you know this really took me a long time to really grasp

what we're doing here what was this all about you know there's like you know you can't cross

the sea by standing there and staying you gotta do something I started to realize that these 12

steps were something that I needed I needed to practice them in my life every single day and it

was a lot of work it was hard because most of what the principles of the 12 steps talk about

goes against who I am who I am naturally you know I'll tell you a story about that about the steps

because I identify with you know so well like what did you do you know the guys I sponsor always you

know always always try to equate it to some action that can be taken you know and you know I'll tell

you this story because it's I mean it's me and my mother was a remarkable she was a woman that

really she had been wrong every dream she had she lost her youngest child she lost her husband

she lost everything and here was her only son and she knew she was losing him and I didn't

treat her very well when I was out there I didn't I wasn't in contact with her for months at a time

she was dead I mean I just and she knew what the story was she wouldn't accept it but she

she knows just like and it was a lot of years ago she didn't understand what was it anyway I got I

got sober and I made amends to her but then I learned here that it wasn't enough to just make

amends you know there's step six and seven two which talk about addressing my character defects

there was no point making amends to her this was going to change who I was and so I tried to behave

differently telling the truth I called her on a regular basis and on Mother's Day we went to see

her on the holidays we spent together and slowly started to rebuild this relationship of love and

trust and you know I met my wife and we started channeling and she ended up she was living down in

we're in Calabasas and she was living in Orange County and she her husband moved up here to be

closer to us and she participated with those kids lives it was the best part of her life that she

had ever experienced it was like she was at that in that part of her life I was doing well I was

happy and a wonderful wife and these three kids and she was volunteering at their school and I

mean she life was just really really good and then one day she called me she said that they had found

a spot kid and I remember we went down to the beach in Malibu and you know what do you say

what do you say I said uh I said you know what's going to happen but I'm going to be with you every

step of the way and I was I was with her every step of the way I went to doctors appointments

with her I fought with insurance companies for the course hospitals to take her in and give her

these treatments and she had some horrible just clinical trials that were just devastating

physically and you know in the end she was losing it and I remember her last days she was living in

Wesley village she knew she only had moments to live here at the end so one by one my family

went in to say goodbye to her and my children went in they were little at the time they went in

each alone if you ever made somebody rain it's a little scary they're scary these children were

unfriend because they loved her they just saw right past and then you know my wife went in

husband went in and I was the last person and I went in that room and she looked at me and she

said I love you and I told her the same and I was holding her just spinning bonds and I laid

her back and she lost consciousness and she lived for a few more days you know just with my sister

and I slept on the floor just waiting for that moment and we were with her when she passed and

it just so happened that when she died her minister and her husband my three children my wife were

made home downstairs so moments after she died they all came upstairs we held hands around the bed

my life has changed and so on let's work on the steps and our thoughts and obvious that's what

I've got but it took it took effort it's not like hey look steps and see it took some it took effort

to make up I started to build a life here it was just it was amazing really I've been able to

succeed in ways that I had never been able to succeed in my life I'd always thought of myself

as a loser and I realized that calling myself a loser is just another excuse so it was no excuse

for going to take responsibility and uh and so these wonderful things started to happen

my wife and I were building this life and but you know things happen right I mean life happens over

time you know it's not you know I lost my mom my whole birth family has gone you know I've had

times where I've just felt insecure I've had times where I've been afraid had times right that sense

of impending doom and I don't even know why and uh and so things like that happen you know 2023

was not a great year for me in January last year and the surgery on my show I'm a very active

person so whenever I kind of have to go down it's it's hard for me I had surgery on my on my left

shoulder and then in uh February my son is a professional baseball player his career came to

just kind of abrupt and untimely and it's very challenging for me and then in March my uh my back

had been causing me problems with my feet and lower legs started to get numb I was just really worried

about that so I went to the doctor and they've been in our and I said yeah you know a serious

condition we need to take care of that when we did the MRI and we noticed that I gave a kidney

stone and so they said we're going to take care of that first they have two surgeries to have the

kidney stone which was very unpleasant then the doctor said you know see your back we should do

an MRI of your neck just to be sure well we've been in my neck and it was worse than my back they

said that's more serious we need to do that so August 18th of last year I had a multi-level

neck fusion surgery which is not fun not fun at all and then in December I had a back surgery in

September and I got called into a meeting in my job a virtual meeting and I worked at a desk in

my garage and I got called into a virtual meeting and they announced that the division I worked for

they were shutting down they were eliminating my position and like that a 35-year career

was over it was over with me sitting alone in my garage all the people that had worked for me

managed over the years that I worked with sitting there alone in my garage in my car so there was no

party there was no plaque there's no watch there was neither and I'll tell you what was strange

about it though was last year I did have my mullets I had my mullets of stroke and I was

physically uncomfortable but I was okay I was okay and I came to realize that the circumstances

of my life weren't necessarily my well-being was not dependent on the circumstances it just wasn't

I didn't realize that but I found that out last year and I bought my own dam I like my watch my

watch understands me my watch will tell me you've had a stressful day it talks to me it does and it

says it says my wife will say well you ever got chores to do around the house I'll be like yeah

my watch says I need to rest a couple days ago it asked me it says have you ever considered not

drinking alcohol anyway uh you know this is a new year and uh so a lot of this year's off to a much

better start and I'll tell you what if you just looked at my life from a 40,000 foot view I mean

here's what you would see I have a sponsor that I've had for a long time Bob Aro not star but he

means a great member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm in regular contact with him and I love him and

he loves me I sponsor a bunch of guys that uh you know when they hurt I do what I can to use their

pay and uh when they have triumphs in their lives I get the chance to celebrate those with them too

and it just adds a lot to my life and these three kids have grown up and uh you know my uh youngest

daughter is a consultant she had an engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh she lives

in Chicago she's just doing great and uh my son is now uh retired from baseball and he and his wife

live on uh most beach now so they're close by he's got his own business and they're happy and and

building a good life and my oldest daughter Kristen uh lives in Burke Bank now my husband David and

they have two children so I'm a grandfather Zeke who's a little over two years old and Lydia June

he's three weeks old I spent the afternoon holding Lydia June my mother's name is Jim so it's kind of

a special and my wife Nancy and I have been we have 36 wedding wedding anniversary at the beginning

of this month and we just got a good thing of going you know all the kids are going we're

empty nesters so we're dating again dating each other it's not like that we're having a lot of

fun together you know I like to ride my mountain bike I enjoy that and play pickleball together

hike and do all the stuff we've been traveling we've been to a lot of really cool places we've

been to Bhutan and uh we went to Africa last year and some just amazing experiences in Africa and

this uh this august we're going to go to Peru we're going to go find this El Canton a truck uh which is a truck

you have to go over it's a 15 000 foot calisthenica like oh it's really going to it's quite a track

it's just like she's got to be married to me you can't we can't just take the bus and the train

and uh and then I found out that so can't they actually means savage and not savage in the way

they use it today it's like hey dude that was savage I mean like like the real savage you know

she knows that yeah it's really going to be something I think it's going to be dope

it's going to be something and we just have a really really good life together yeah you know

now I just you know if you look at my life I mean what what I'm trying to do is I'm just trying to

live a life that's just undisturbed trying to spend so much of my life chasing after things that make

me feel feel good you know and now I'm trying to do things in my life I feel good about because

things that you just feel good make you feel good it's fine but once they're over they're over the

things that you feel good about well that's more permanent that's something that can stick with you

that allows you to build you know really a meaningful life and a life that you know

I'm trying to trying to you know struggle with this idea of humility and alcoholics and on you

see these 12 steps are all based on the concept of humility it's a time for me it's a difficult

thing it's hard to even define I've come to the conclusion that humility just means that uh that

I'm willing to give without it being transaction willing to give expecting nothing in return and

it's a hard thing to do it's a for me it's a hard thing to do I don't know if I have the true

strength of character that humility requires I don't know that uh let me find out I'm gonna do

the best I can of course you know talking about humility is you know it's kind of a hard thing

to talk about because as soon as you start talking about it you're not but uh anyway I um I'm really

grateful for alcoholics and I'm grateful to have developed some kind of of sense of a spiritual

program here you know and I found that really uh because I didn't you know I came here with such a

selfish and distant heart and I didn't understand that concept of loving one another I kind of got

it with loving my wife and children but I didn't understand it and alcoholics and I was like what

do we talk about when we love and then you know I realized that um those people who set up this

meeting and the people who are sponsoring others and uh you know they're helping one another uh

what we do in alcoholics anonymous for each other that's love that's love that's how we love each

other in alcoholics anonymous and almost every religion that you'll know of equates love with

God you know I remember there we were I was at a funeral I talked to the priest afterwards and he

said you know to love and others to see the face of God and I believe that to be true and so that's

where I found this spiritual connection and to me it's real it's substantive I can feel when I feel

that love I could feel it physically it connects with me and that's where I know I've had a

conscious contact with God so uh if you're new I think there was a new person online maybe I don't

know if there's anyone here in the room that was is but um to me what I found here at alcoholics

anonymous through these 12 steps is a meaningful luck is a meaningful luck and if you're new all

I could tell you is if you just try to do this program very best you can just give it your all

as our chapter 5 says rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path thank you