From Bar Mitzvah Wine to Sobriety: Nate’s Journey

- Good evening, my name is Nate.

I am an alcoholic.

My sobriety date is September 10th, 1996.

I have a sponsor, his name is Lloyd Saunders,

and I have a home group, a civil group.

And I want to thank Ben for asking me to come out tonight.

Thank you, Phil, for standing in.

I want to thank Patty and John

for joining us again tonight.

They're great friends.

I want to thank Danny for coming out tonight,

and it's always wonderful to see Danny.

You know, I don't know.

I was a weird kid growing up,

and I know today that I was stuck in self,

and I was just always thinking about me

and worrying about me and me, me, me.

And, you know, I was always looking for a way out.

I always had a good group of friends,

but I just was like, I always want to say

I was a quarter of an inch off from everybody else.

That's just a little bit different.

It was, you know, I'd look and see what's going on next door

and it's like, well, how come they have this

and I don't have that?

And down the street, he's got all these things.

I don't have any of that.

Never grateful for anything I had.

And I came from a very nice family.

My mother screamed a little bit too much,

but, you know, that was the worst of it.

And I was raised well.

I had good schools.

I mean, everything was good.

And I never realized it until I got sober.

How spoiled I am.

I had an older brother and a younger sister,

and I was the middle child trying to be quiet

and to just get away with things.

I was willing to get away with something today

that I'd have to pay for later on.

And that was pretty much the way my life.

And, you know, at times the bill came due.

I grew up in the Jewish religion.

When you're 13, you get bar mitzvahed.

You're turned to a man, become a man when you're 13.

And there's some training for that.

And the training was, you know,

I'd go to synagogue every Friday night,

Saturday night plus school and everything else.

And I would go to the Friday night services

and the Saturday morning services.

And after the service,

they had something called the kiddush.

And they'd have little pieces of cake

and they'd have grape juice for the kids

and they'd have wine.

And if you're really older,

they have a bottle of schnapps over there.

And I never got to the schnapps,

but I did get to the wine.

And I used to walk the synagogue,

it was about a mile,

and I would grab like three of these wines.

And sometimes I get home and it's like,

how'd I get here?

You know, sometimes it was just,

you know, and nobody ever stopped.

Nobody ever thought this down.

You know, it just seemed normal

because that's what we drink at holidays.

So I knew that alcohol had some sort of an effect.

When I was 14,

my parents had cases of when I was up in the air,

I could just stay entertained.

And I went up and grabbed the bottle of Leo,

stuck it in my sweater.

I would come home from school,

maybe take two or three hits of it,

put it back in the sweater drawer.

I remember one time we were switching brands

and a small girl came over and she said,

"Do you have anything to drink?"

I was like, "14 years."

I said, "Yeah, I got my Leo on my sleeve."

And, you know, she'd like to guzzle that whole thing down.

And then come to find out later,

it's like, "Oh no, she's at a special school

because she's got a drink."

She'd probably find it.

She'd probably find it.

But then after 17 years, all that was over.

We sat down in front of the bar

and we intended to get drunk.

We wanted to see what everybody else was drinking.

And that was a pivotal moment of my life

because I drank enough that night

to get the full effects from it,

which I absolutely love.

All of a sudden, I'm not thinking about Ned anymore.

I'm thinking Ned's a pretty cool guy

and come on, let's dance and sing.

And just out of my shell, just like that.

I woke up the next morning, I wasn't feeling too bad.

Didn't really do any divvies that night,

only broke it out straight.

And I woke up and I just went,

"You know, this is something I have to do a lot more."

That's your high school.

It's like every weekend.

And I went off to college

and it was more important to be drinking

than it was to go to school.

I stuck that out for a couple of years.

Back then, I had the draft for Vietnam.

And I picked a very, very high number.

Everybody else was gonna go before me.

And school weekend, not that important.

I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna go to college."

And that's what I did, I ended up going to work

for my father eventually.

And, you know, I think that I was fine.

It was no problem at night.

I just wanted to sit down and have a few drinks.

Wasn't too bad.

The weekends were still a little crazy.

Of course, it was the late '60s, early '70s.

And there are other things involved.

And I always had my boots on.

I'm the only guy that kept a bottle of booze

over at the drug dealers house.

And the first thing I did when I walked in there

was I took a drink.

Actually, the drugs just went away.

I ended up getting married.

And that little lady threw help.

I really did with my drinking.

I learned I had a rare excuse in the book.

Didn't come home when I said I was going to be home.

And I had gotten a job offer in Dallas.

Went there and did the show up for two weeks

'cause I couldn't stand drinking.

Finally stopped drinking, went to the job.

I started doing okay with the job.

I called up my napex and said,

"I'm gonna come back and get you and bring you down."

And she said, "Are you still drinking?"

I don't know what to drink.

Just lied, just like, "And I'm still drinking."

Like, oh, I don't know.

And I brought her down.

And it's just for a couple of weeks, I was just perfect.

I was just the perfect husband.

I did everything.

My buddy's called and said, "Can you get out tonight?"

And I said, "Yeah."

I didn't know what to do.

She hit every bar in the house.

I walked back in the house at five o'clock in the morning

and I got that look.

And I said, "Oh, and that night?"

She said, "Are you not either?

"You gotta go to alcoholics."

And I was like, "I have no idea where alcoholics is."

But I called.

It was on Sunday night and I called.

Surprisingly, the guy said,

"Well, we have a newcomer meeting on Tuesday."

I just assumed they didn't have meetings on Monday.

And on Tuesday, I met some young adults

and my thought was, "I'm not that bad yet,

"but it'd be nicer to be here than it is to be at home."

That's what I did.

I stayed there.

I didn't really have a sponsor.

It wasn't really sponsoring me.

We were more like friends.

And after a year of being sober,

we ended up getting a divorce.

It wasn't that crazy about ours.

It wasn't that crazy about that.

I did a great job.

I started to come home.

The first time we were going out of town,

I met this man at the airport 10 o'clock in the morning

on Sunday.

I said, "Why aren't we leaving so early?

"The flight doesn't take long till six o'clock."

He said, "Well, there's two football games.

"We gotta watch the football games before we fly."

And he's sitting there drinking a shabby.

He said, "What do you want?"

I said, "Get me a rum and coke.

"Just like that."

Not even a second thought.

And that started it up again.

And that proceeded to be...

I went to my first meeting in 1979.

I didn't really get sober until '96.

It was like 16 years in there.

I'm in and out of alcoholics and items.

And it was painful.

It was, things would get real bad.

I'd be back in AA.

I'd stop drinking for a little while.

There was one time in '86,

I was sober for two and a half years.

But then I met her.

And don't you know, I had to move away from that.

She always said, "You know, I'll take the long drive.

"I'll be back and this and that."

And you know how that...

It's very hard to get connected with a new group

when you're sober for a little while.

It's not like you're a newcomer.

And got it with just people on my dignity

to come in and raise my hand up

and say, "You know, I'm not new,

"but I just moved here from so-and-so

"to like to be a part of this."

No, I just have to sit quietly.

And I was never one of these people

that put my hand out to anybody, really.

So I was like in the back of the room, quiet.

So it was, you know, you can walk into some meetings

and people will put their hands out.

They'll have greeters at the door.

You know, some meetings just don't have any of that.

You walk in and you sit down and that's it.

Nobody says hi to you.

And so you really have to work your own program

wherever you go.

And I never got...

I never felt like I belonged there.

And, you know, I started drinking again.

And it was just, it's in it now.

And bad things would happen.

I would get DUIs.

I think I had a total of four.

They were spread out pretty good,

except for my last two.

And when I got nailed for the second one,

I was living up in San Luis Obispo.

I was managing a hotel up there.

And I was drinking pretty much 24/7.

And it really wasn't a secret.

And I had a second DUI up there.

And it's like by this time,

okay, they're gonna put me in jail.

They're gonna let me out.

I'll walk tonight.

You know, call up a cab.

They'll come and pick me up.

And it was like, it's not a big thing.

But when I went to court,

they never had records of my DUI right before that,

which would have made this second.

And I pleaded guilty to a first DUI.

And like I said early on,

you know, I'm willing to get away today.

I'll pay for it later on.

Well, and of course they give you all these rules

and regulations to follow.

And it's just, I'm still drinking.

I'm still drinking.

We left court with my attorney and friend.

We spent, it's a great restaurant.

Have dinner and just drink all that.

You know, that's just the way I was.

And that job went to hell in a handbag

when the corporate people called and said,

you know, we've been talking to the accountant.

The accountant says,

you've been slurring your words and such.

We'd like to come up here over the property with you.

And I said, come on up.

I couldn't stop drinking.

I could not stop drinking from the causes to come back.

They walked in.

They took one look at me and said, you're drunk.

I said, I know.

They said, you're fired.

I said, I know.

I just like that.

I mean, it's just, you know.

And then it's porn.

Porn.

And then I come on back to the south

and I got sober with a gentleman back in '86.

And we actually stayed friends.

And he saw what was going on with me.

He was starting a company.

And I said, I just need some of the dope.

I just need some of the dope.

And I started working with him.

We went to meetings together.

He stayed sober.

He's got 10 years with me today.

He stole my best friend.

And it seemed like every six months I would get this itch.

And I'd be at a meeting.

I'd leave the meeting.

I'd start up at the liquor store, buy a chisel and lock it.

Go home, suck it down.

And I'd be back in the meeting the next night with my hand up.

And this was going a few times.

And it's just, I couldn't get honest with him.

I just had to look good all the time, say everything's well.

I wanted to be one of those people.

I said, I'm a high bottom drunk.

I was not a high bottom drunk.

I was a real high bottom drunk.

And I knew it.

I knew my next step was going to be in the gut.

And I'm trying to fool everybody.

I'm lying.

I listened a lot.

And it was very hurtful because I could never

complain with anything.

You know what it's like to walk into a meeting and say,

oh, you have a birthday today.

Because I signed their book sometime last year

or something.

And it's like, no, I can't take a kick.

That's the only thing I was honest with.

I didn't screw around too much with the program.

And what happened was those DUIs caught up with me.

There were alarms out from IRS.

I was scared to death to go to the DMV.

I was scared to death to register my car.

I was just so full of fear for everything.

My license hadn't been good in a couple of years.

Scared to go to the DMV.

My life was ruled by fear.

And it was just, people would ask me to do stuff.

And I don't know.

I don't know do I have to drive to it.

You know, I needed a couple of drinks just to get in the car.

And so what happened was I was sober about three or four

months.

And my sponsor said, it's time to go back to court

and go up to Santa Barbara and settle this thing

and do whatever you got to do.

I said, they're going to put me in jail.

Oh, now you're an AA.

They're going to let you.

I said, no, they're not.

I said, they told me they were going to put me in jail.

I said, I'm going to jail.

And that Sunday, I was so full of fear.

I woke up, found myself a lucky market.

And I'm sucking this down.

I'm sucking down a bottle of vodka.

And I go back and it's like, that's enough.

I'll get a bottle of rum this time.

That sounds good.

Suck down another bottle of rum.

And then I get this great idea.

We should drive up to Santa Barbara now.

And I've got friends up there I'm going to stay with.

That's my best thinking.

That is my absolute best thinking.

And the problem is, once I start drinking, I can't stop.

I have no control.

Monday, I'm calling the office.

I'm really tired.

I can't make it to Tuesday.

Wednesday, I stopped drinking Wednesday.

And the Thursday, I was in terrible, terrible shape

because I can't handle a booze like I used to.

And we made the court Friday morning.

And I get in front of the judge.

And she said, oh, Mr. Wilson, I'm sorry.

Hey, you're here.

Are you ready to go to jail?

Yeah, the office kind of thing you need.

And they sent me off to the pharmacy for a couple weeks.

And I still didn't resolve anything.

They didn't get to hear my story.

So I came back, there was a girl answering the phones for me.

And she just looked at me.

She said, you're coming with me to me.

It's OK.

Wait, what about you?

I'm out of ideas.

It's the except Ohio Street, too.

And I get in line.

And there's a lot of people there.

I really like small things.

So there's too many people here standing in line,

just going by and saying, you know.

That's like-- and it's all in front of me.

It's just I turn around and say, how are you doing?

What?

And she said, do you really want an option?

He said, yeah.

He said, step into my office.

We walked around the side with you.

And I proceeded to tell this man everything is wrong in my--

there's nothing good.

There must be as good as I still have a job.

And it's just a small job.

And he said, here's my number.

Give me a call on the number.

And he laid out a program for me.

He said, you're going to do everything

that this group does.

That means going to all the meetings.

If there's a watch, somebody's turning on, you're there.

If there's a birthday party, you're there.

If there's a funeral, you're there.

I expect you in the D.R. to play softball Saturdays.

I mean, it was just--

I just went, OK.

And it's just-- I had this thing in the back of my car.

It had been carrying around for years.

And it was an embossed suicide.

And I pulled it out of the back of the car

and it put it in my book.

And I started saying it every day.

It's something like, God, please help me set aside everything

I know about alcoholics and help me have a new experience.

And that's what I did.

That's what I did.

And I started-- it's just in the back of my mind.

I'm thinking, six months for me, I'm going to feel differently

and I'm going to drink.

And this is like my last shot.

I always said, even early on in Alcoholics Anonymous,

one day we'll save my life.

And I just didn't know when I was going to go.

And I didn't know.

It was just telling me.

And it's just-- I started watching my feet.

And my feet were doing--

I ended up getting my--

well, I had to sober about three months.

I'm going to all the meetings and doing everything.

And then my sponsor said, it's time

for you to go back to work and get this whole thing

straightened out so you don't have

to live with it anymore because it's killing you.

And if you get stopped, the judge is taking you to jail.

They're not going to even ask you your name.

They got-- they know you.

Why?

They're just going to jail.

So I go to Purdue, or you go to the courthouse,

and they're getting a public defender out there.

They said, they're going to probably

want to put you in jail.

I said, I know.

I just got out of jail.

I said, here's the deal.

I said, I just walked in here on my own delicious.

I said, if I have to go to jail, I said, I'll come back.

Vacationed.

I'll take my vacation in jail.

I can't go today.

He said, I'm going to get away one more time.

Talk to the prosecutor.

Let's back out.

And he said, OK, I got it.

Caltrans.

Caltrans, you can do it on the weekends.

You can do it on the weekends, holidays.

I said, can't they do something where I can be helpful?

Work in a rehab center or something?

And he said, no, it's got to be Caltrans.

But of course, I said, yes.

And I got in front of the judge, and the judge

said, Mr. Ospeth, he's here.

He disappeared on us for five years.

He said, I think you're going to disappear for another five

years.

I'm going to give you one more shot.

And I said, thank you, judge.

Left there, signed up for Caltrans.

And that was my meetings, everything,

and I'm doing Caltrans on the weekends.

And I'm just a busy guy, and I'm doing.

And before you know it, six months came and went.

I didn't even think of a drink.

I didn't think about a drink.

I didn't have to lie to any of my new friends there.

I did not lie to my Spanish friends or anything.

And I had that new friend.

I had that new friend.

I was still-- now I'm a little bit scared.

OK, what's going to happen in a year?

But it's like, if I just keep doing what I'm doing,

it should be all right.

And you know, in a year, I got a watch.

And people actually showed up for it,

because you always think nobody's going to show up.

You know, it was really, really nice.

It was really, really nice.

And after that year, it's like, well, I'm not a newcomer.

What am I going to do now?

As I have a new job, I got to pass this on to the next guy.

And I was OK with that.

It's like, this is good.

This is a good thing.

And you know, after I had a year, my sponsor said, well,

do you want to drop a meter?

I said, I don't want to change anything.

I said, something will happen where things will change,

and it'll be part of a-- and sure enough,

I picked up the panel.

I was going to the kids' lockup in Norwalk

and did that until they changed the law.

And those kids were sent to jail.

They were originally keeping them there until they were 25.

And then they turned 18 now.

I was like, no, I'm sorry.

You can't be here anymore and get off the jail.

And then I got another panel after that.

And then central office.

You know, our group is very, very good at passing things on.

And how I got that panel was, you know,

a guy asked me to come and do it with him.

And the next month, he asked me to come and do it with him.

And the next month said, I'm moving out of town.

You've got to take this.

You know, and that's the way central office went, too.

Somebody invited me to one of the meetings.

And he said, I'm moving out of town.

He said, I want you to take this.

So I became a zoned delegate and, you know,

then ended up spending a lot of time in central office

and being chairman down there.

You know, but the best part of that was working the phones.

The phones were great.

I'd do it Friday night.

And that was a joy.

You know, it was just one thing after the other.

Everything just meshed together.

There were little trips.

I used to go to Monterey.

We'd do this thing up in the mountains,

mountain high every year.

And these are things that I would never do on my own.

And it's like, they're showing me how to do this.

They showed me how to show up for a memorial service

and how to conduct one.

You know, when I was--

and somewhere in here--

I'm not sure how my time is, but somewhere in here,

I had somebody walk into my office.

And she was looking for a job.

And we were helping the girls at the house, I hope,

because the guy I'm working is still my best friend, Pat.

And he's sober, and he's very involved in the program.

He's very involved down in South Bay.

And he was helping the girls look for work,

because we had an extra computer.

And Janice walked in.

And it was fun.

She came up to Pacific group a few times.

Her sponsor took her up there.

And then we lost track of each other.

And somewhere down the line, we were at a memorial service.

And I said, do you need a ride home?

She said, yeah.

I gave her a ride home.

I found out she's working like two blocks from us.

She said, let's have lunch on Fridays.

Now, we did lunch on Fridays for awfully long.

And we finally went out on a date.

We came up here to the Valley to the Al-Anon alcohol

speaker meeting.

And that was our first date.

And my sponsor, Ms. Watson, you know.

And you know, it's worked out well.

We married 15 years, 5/4.

And we've been together for 25, 26 years now.

And I've never been successful in a relationship.

My sponsor gave me a lot of help, a lot of help.

I needed it.

I needed it.

2007, I got a call from my dad.

And he said, your brother passed away.

And I said, I'll be there in the morning.

He said, I'll make a plane reservation to get out there.

And my brother, I don't know.

His ex-wife swore that he had an alcohol problem.

I gave him the book.

He said, yeah.

He said, that's me in there.

But he said, I stopped drinking it.

It doesn't really affect me anymore.

He said, I got this church.

But he passed away way too early.

And, you know, he was trying to settle a moral service

and do the things that we do.

And I didn't know how to do that because of alcohol.

And, you know, it's amazing that I

can get up in front of a group of people and speak.

I was so fearful of that for the longest time.

I was in a fear that I could overcome an alcohol phenomenon.

I've been-- one of the things in my immense

was just my parents.

My parents were my favorite young man

because I disappeared for so long.

I started falling down the floor all the time.

It's-- I would leave on a Thursday night

and come back on Sunday or Monday.

And I would do that five, six times a year.

I got a call.

You know, five years later, your mom's got cancer.

Went down the floor, got to the airport, went to Florida,

stayed there until she passed.

And it's a gift of this program.

I was able to do something like that with me and my father.

And then we started going.

Yeah, we were still gone.

So we had to take care of the guys, make sure he's got home.

You know, and he eventually passed.

He was-- he was 94 years old.

You know, every time I would leave,

I'd call him the next day after I got home.

He said, when are you coming back?

When are you coming back?

You know, he wasn't marking the bottles any more.

I mean, that's why I've given me so many gifts.

I'm still working the same job that I had 29 years ago.

You know, we just sold the company.

We're still going to work there another year or two.

Bless-- what a blessing.

It's just-- and to be working with my best friend,

to go to meetings with him and see what he's done.

You know, I mean, it's just-- this life is unbelievable.

Five years ago, Janice's-- she started to get to be in trouble.

And I was just spending a night or two there every weekend

anyway before she just went to company.

She just went home.

And so five years ago, I just said to Janice, I said,

you know, this is getting silly.

I said, aren't there two or three nights a week?

I said, you're there on the weekend.

I said, this just doesn't make sense.

I said, let's move down there.

I said, I'll be closer to your office.

And that's what we did.

And she was very happy to have us.

And Janice, a fantastic, fantastic caregiver.

Just unbelievable.

And she drove the doctors crazy.

And I had quite a few things with her.

And, you know, it's just-- anyway, after five years,

she passed away in December.

And, you know, it was another gift in the classroom.

I was in the server, and I've done any of that.

I probably still wouldn't be alive.

It's just the gifts of this program are just unbelievable.

And it's everyday life.

You know, I get up in the morning, the first thing I do

is start meditating and say my prayers.

I send out some texts to some of the guys.

And then I can get on with my day.

And then the day before I go to bed, I just say, thank you,

God, say my prayers over again.

And, you know, I've had a wonderful spiritual experience

in this program.

I wasn't-- I had that spiritual experience when I was in jail.

I don't want to do this anymore.

And then I had the spiritual experience,

and I got through the book and through working with you.

Really good to be here.

- Thank you so much.