Fernando's Journey: From Teenage Drinking to 28 Years Sober

- I'm an alcoholic, my name is Fernando.

- Hi, Fernando.

- Yes, there's another mic.

Welcome if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm really happy to be here.

I wanna thank, well, I would thank Ben

for inviting me, he's not here though.

Thank you for filling in.

Appreciate doing anything for Alcoholics Anonymous

that I'm asked to do as a way to try to pay back

Alcoholics Anonymous for the life it's given me,

a life I did not know I wanted,

and it's turned me into someone I didn't know I wanted to be

and didn't wanna be, to be honest.

- And thank you for your 10 minute lead and your share.

That was awesome.

- I need it all I need to hear.

But I'm supposed to talk for,

until the lights tell me to shut up,

so I'm gonna try to do that.

And because I've worked the steps with the sponsor

out of the big book inside of a home group,

I have a sobriety date of April 28, 1998.

For that, I owe Alcoholics Anonymous my life.

That is not possible without you guys.

I know that because for eight to 10 years

before my current sobriety date,

I went in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous

going to treatment centers.

I was more out than in, but I had been to AA before.

And as a teenager, I started getting sent to AA,

not my idea.

I did not come to AA, judges and school administrators

and different people thought I should check out AA.

They apparently had a problem with my drinking.

I did not.

I was having fun, so I was kind of confused,

but didn't have a choice 'cause I was a teenager.

My parents kind of co-signed that.

And it would be profound arrogance.

So this is not my first sobriety date,

but it would be really stupid and foolish

if I think this is my last sobriety date

because I can drink again.

Far more spiritual, serious people

in Alcoholics Anonymous have drank than me.

One of them I was married to, my first wife,

a far more honest spiritual person than me.

And she's drinking herself to death

in the streets of New Orleans.

So I don't take my sobriety for granted.

And the only answer to an AA request is yes,

because I have a friend.

We were supposed to do a panel like 15 years ago.

And she told me, "I can't go."

And I was like, "That's fine."

And then she called me up two weeks later

and was like, "Did I drink?"

Like, "If I'd gone, I wouldn't have drank it."

And so I try to hang on to what I have, you know?

And one day is like a big deal to me.

Like, remember how much time you got?

It's, when I was new, this old timer, Kip Collins,

who's at the big meeting,

and this guy who used to sponsor my friend

used to tell me it's easier to stay sober.

It's way easier to stay sober

than it is to try to get sober again.

And I've had that experience.

And so like, I know that no matter how inconvenient

or difficult it is to do things to stay sober today,

it is gonna be way harder to get sober,

especially if I'm in prison or in the hospital

or the things that happen to me when I drink.

So I was born in Los Angeles.

Both my parents were born in Los Angeles.

Doesn't make me an alcoholic,

but it made being a teenage alcoholic a lot of fun

because we, where I grew up in the East side of LA,

in LA County, they would, most,

we knew the liquor stores that would sell to people,

you could be like 10 years old and they'd sell you alcohol.

And so that was cool.

And then I had cousins that were drug dealers.

Oh, my current sponsor, before I forget, is Allenby.

And my current home group is a Pacific group.

It takes a village to keep an alcoholic sober.

And I'm the village idiot in that group.

So they tolerate me.

So, but, so my parents are not alcoholic.

My grandfathers are alcoholic,

but my parents met at Griffith Park in the sixties

at a Janice Joplin and Jimi Hendrix concert.

And then, and then I was told recently

I was conceived in the bathroom of the whiskey

at Sunset Strip.

And, and my dad is Hispanic and my mother's dad is Hispanic

and his mother is Jewish from Spain.

So I'm really stereotypically LA person,

but that doesn't make me alcoholic.

Actually, I hated the fact that I lived in LA growing up

and wished I didn't live, you know, as an alcoholic,

I wished I lived anywhere and had any other family

than my family.

And I'm never comfortable where I'm at.

And I'm never happy with what I got.

And, you know, I actually grew up

with extremely loving parents who were not alcoholics.

And as a first born male in a Hispanic family,

I was treated like a deity.

So I had everything I needed for sure.

And, and usually got what I wanted.

I don't remember ever being told no,

that might make me alcoholic, but,

but I had one sibling and, and the first time I drank,

I was in middle school.

It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade.

And my, my cousins asked me to sneak out with them.

And so I did.

And then I was really, as a kid,

I was really introverted, shy, quiet, a bookworm.

I grew up around a lot of books with my,

my mom was an avid book reader.

And, and so like, I just was kind of like scared of kids.

Cause like my age and definitely kids older than me.

So my, I was going into middle school.

My cousins were in high school and middle school already.

So I was like, oh, they're gonna,

I'm gonna say something stupid and they're gonna realize

that I'm too young to be hanging around them.

They're gonna make me go back with the younger kids.

And so I was like actually terrified,

but I wanted to try to fit in.

So I snuck out and as an alcoholic,

I don't need to, to really have experience

or know what you're talking about,

to act like I know what you're talking about.

My cousin was like, hey, we're going to sneak out

and drink and party, you party, right?

And I was like, oh yeah, I'm banging rocks every weekend.

And he was like, what?

So whatever dude, like, yeah, sneak out and meet us,

you know, behind the church on the corner of White and Gary,

I think it was, but so I snuck out

and then they were passing around something in a brown bag,

which I know today is, is, is a malt liquor

and passing around stuff, smoking it.

And then, and I was nervous.

I never drank.

I was kind of scared, not because I, my grandparents,

I just had no knowledge of alcoholism.

It really wasn't talked about or no preconception.

So I wasn't scared about that.

I just thought I would like look stupid

and throw up or something.

And, but I took a drink.

I just watched people, which is what I have always done.

Watched people and copy what they did.

And then I took a big swig on the alcohol.

It tasted horrible.

And I passed and was like, that was gross.

And then to myself and then took a big hit

off of the cigarette there, passing around,

cough my brains out and then try to play it off

like I wasn't hacking along.

And then, and then they went around again and again,

and then, and then probably like 30 minutes into it,

I had a spiritual awakening.

There's magical release and freedom in a bottle for me.

Like I, Mike, I was transformed inside and outside.

Like, like it's a disease of perception.

My entire perception was shifted to being comfortable.

And like, when I first was going to hang with my cousins,

I was worried that I was going to be their lower companion

or not worthy.

And then I was like, why am I hanging around these losers?

Like they were my lower companions.

Like I was like, and I, and I could laugh and have fun

and talk like a grownup, whatever that been.

Talk about sex I hadn't had yet.

Like I had like, just like totally like, you know,

it just was an awesome night.

Like if you're a shy, introverted, quiet, scared kid like me

and you find something that is a solution, all that,

and they like set you free and you can come out and play

and be with other people and have a good time

and not take yourself too seriously and not overthink everything.

Man, I'm like, I'm in, like already I'm like 100%,

like I'm going to do this as much as I can, as often as I can.

And so my cousins were drug dealers.

So we started, I immediately tried to hang around them

all the time and was like, yeah, let me, you know, help.

And, and they did, you know, and so as a kid, you know,

I, there were liquor stores that would sell us,

but they were across town.

So it's not easy to drink every day,

but there was always drugs around and I do drugs alcoholically.

And what I mean by this is my cousin sold weed.

So like we would have weed and I would smoke weed

and we'd be high and then I would smoke more

and then I'd smoke more and they're like, dude,

like you literally can't get any higher.

Like at this point you're wasting the weed

and that's my alcohols.

I want, that one's too many, a thousand isn't enough.

If anything feels good, I'm going to do it and just do it.

Even if I'm not getting an enhancement or benefit from it,

I'm going to keep doing it.

And, and so when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous

the first time that, that I had to go to a treatment program

in my late teens, I was convinced I was a drug addict

because that was obviously a problem.

But there was a, there was some old dude there.

He was 17 years sober.

He was the only sober alcoholic in the treatment center.

My first treatment center and his name was Jim.

I hated Jim.

He was like always busting my balls.

Like you're an alcoholic.

I'm like, I'm not dude.

You're an alcoholic because you're lame and you're old.

Old people are alcoholics. I've been to A.

A was like, I grew up in an atheist home.

I'm a third generation atheist.

My grandparents were atheists and my parents were atheists

in the home I was growing up in.

And so I was like, when they took me to my first A,

meaning I was like, what is this?

This is like religious special ed.

Like what, like I don't get it.

Like they're not even talking about a specific,

like a Jewish God, like, you know, a Catholic.

No, it's a God of our understanding.

I was like, wow, this is really.

So I immediately was like, I mean,

I thought in treatment that like we're at treatment all day

and we're doing groups in like individual therapy.

So I thought recovery and like from whatever's wrong with me

drug addiction, I thought at the time,

like we're doing recovery at the treatment center.

And I thought AA and other 12 step programs

were like extra credit or like for people that believed

in God, neither which applied to me.

So I would like take naps in meetings and not listen

or care or pay attention.

But Jim, who I could not escape because he worked

in the treatment center I was at was always like,

you're a juicer.

I'm like, I'm not a juicer bro.

I'm not an alcoholic.

And then one time, so we had family week

and my family came once, my parents and I thought, yeah,

that was lame.

They were kind of boring.

And so then I was, one week I brought a girl,

a girlfriend and whatever.

And then the next week I brought a different girl,

but they were both blond.

So I thought, well, no one will notice.

And Jim was like, that's not the same girl.

And I'm like, dude, why are you always on my ass?

And he's all, the fact that you have two girlfriends

proves you're an alcoholic.

And I'm like, no, it's complicated.

And he's all, yeah.

And so it's interesting when I left that treatment center,

the non-alcoholic staff told me all the time

I was the best patient doing so great that I was voted

most likely to stay sober forever.

Like a model patient really got to the core of things,

whatever, whatever they do in treatment,

I don't know how it was there, but I still don't know.

And Jim was like, oh yeah, you know, when you come back.

And I was like, I'm not coming back.

And he's all, he said, it's not if we drink, it's when.

And he didn't say you, he said we.

It's not if you drink, if we drink, it's when.

And I was out of that treatment center for a week

and I drank and off to the races again.

So I didn't go to AA for a while or anything

'cause I'd finished the court had ordered.

But, and I kept my job 'cause I was gonna get fired

from where I was at, so I didn't go to treatment.

But in like the couple of years that since I was there,

by the time I got to AA this time,

my parents had disowned me

'cause I beat my mom up in a blackout.

My dad threatened to kill me

if I ever was in the neighborhood we lived in.

We're from East LA.

And my dad is one of the founding members,

one of the biggest gangs that still exists today.

And he was in prison at that point

and called me from prison and was like,

if you don't leave the house

or I hear you're in the neighborhood,

I'll have you killed from this prison,

I won't you beat up your mom.

I had drug dealers in front of me

from South Central Los Angeles

in front of me $10,000 worth of coke to sell for them.

One night I accidentally smoked it all.

It can happen, right?

They kidnapped my girlfriend and murdered her.

And a public defender told me the FBI was investigating me.

And so I was like, I got to get out of LA.

And I was in junior college at that point

and could transfer to a four-year university.

And then I met a woman who I knew from high school kinda,

but we never really talked.

I was like a metalhead kid and she was like a school,

like honor roll student, whatever.

We started talking and I told her,

she's like, yeah, I'm going to college in Orange County,

have my own place.

And I live by myself, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, wow, that's...

And so I'm a taker, so I'm a loser.

The takers in life are losers.

The winners in life are the givers.

Just look around alcoholics anonymous,

the losers are the takers, the winners are the givers.

And in life, you can look outside of it and that's true.

But so of course I'm like sized up the situation.

I'm like, I've always really crushed on you,

always loved you.

And she was just, and she fell for it.

So she let me move in with her.

So I'm not like a mastermind criminal genius.

I didn't move to New York, Florida.

I moved 30 minutes away to Orange County.

They could have gotten a call when you told me.

But I thought I'm on a college campus.

There's no way they'll find me.

And I was there and I enrolled and gotten to school.

School's always been easy for me,

probably because of my mom's family

and how much she had me reading growing up.

So I was attending a four year university

and basically my alcoholism was getting worse.

And the big book says, they might, like the big book says,

my thinking and drinking were getting worse.

I was getting more insane.

My alcohols and drugs were getting worse

and I was becoming extremely violent

and putting hands on my girlfriend at the time

who had become my fiance.

And so I went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, I think.

I came out of a blackout and I was in a tube

and there was a loud clicking noise

and they're doing MRI on my brain.

They said I was taking the hospital unconscious.

They said my liver and kidneys were shutting down

and they said, your immune system is so destroyed.

You got mold right in your back, a big patch of mold.

We think you have AIDS.

They test me and said, you're HIV negative.

And then they said, you do drugs and alcohol.

And I was like, I'm really,

I'm super offended that you would suggest

to do drugs and alcohol.

They're like, well, you had a really high blood alcohol

when you got here.

And I was like, I want to file a complaint

when you see your manager.

Are you accusing him of being a drug addict alcoholic?

And they were like, you can't stay here.

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

You don't have health insurance.

So I went to the apartment that I lived out with

with my girlfriend and it was totally empty.

She got a U-Haul truck while I was in the hospital

and ran from the life.

So I'm delusional and thought,

oh, I didn't know we were moving.

And I thought, well, I'll just post up here

until she comes and gets and takes me to our new place.

And my past sponsor, Jeff, used to remind me,

it's been 25 years now she hasn't come to gate news.

But I thought that there's no way she would leave me.

And so I would wait for her to come.

I would get panhandle every day

to get enough money to drink into a blackout.

I'd wake up, I'm curled in the fetal position

in an empty apartment that she used to live in

and I wasn't on the lease that she used to pay rent for.

I have no way to pay the rent.

And she, I would wake up and curse to God,

I didn't believe him for letting me wake up on 5 p.m.,

go panhandle, beg for more money, start drinking again,

drink into a blackout, wake up about 5 p.m. the next day.

So, and that was like my life,

the cycle of my life and my daily routine.

And the Fortune Alano Club, I was going to college,

we used to be in the middle.

It's a bar town, it's a drinking town,

a college drinking town.

They used to have their Alano Club

in the middle of all the bars.

And I thought it was a bar

because everybody standing outside looked like drunks.

They were smoking and drinking coffee.

And there was like a bar in every direction,

five feet from the Alano Club.

And so I went in and tried to buy a drink

and they were like, "Well, we don't sell alcohol,

"but here's a free cup of coffee,

"you should try to hang out."

And so I'm outside minding my own business,

like looking for someone to panhandle more money

or thinking what to do next.

And this kid, Keon, he was 21 years old and two years old,

came up and started like, was way too excited,

way too worried about what was going on with me,

way too interested in me.

He was like, "What's your deal?

"What's up?

"What's going on?"

I'm like, "Whoa."

And then he's like, "Are you going to the meeting?"

I was like, "Uh, I guess."

You know, I thought he would like,

I thought actually he acted like he was drunk.

He was not.

He just was really probably drunk on the steps.

He was trying to 12-step me.

He was drunk on a different spiritual experience.

And to this day, the most enthusiastic, excited person

about AI I've ever met.

And so I went, it was during the break,

we went in the meeting and then after the meeting,

he was like, "Do you want to go to a meeting tomorrow?"

My home group meets tomorrow and I'm like,

"Nah, dude, I'm like way too busy.

"Like I literally told you guys what I do."

Like I'm way too busy, I have a lot of stuff to do,

a lot of suicide to think about, like I'm really busy.

And he was like, "Oh, my home group has a huge steak dinner

"with free food and then we have the meeting."

And I couldn't remember the last time I ate.

So I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm totally down, pick me up."

So my plan was to go to the meeting and eat

and then like bounce before the meeting started.

And I was 12-step into a group

where that's not even possible.

A group like my current home group.

Everybody obviously knew I was new,

even though it was a huge meeting, like 300 people.

And everybody came up to me and was,

"Oh, you're new, you're new."

And then this guy named Jeff Nichols was like,

"Oh, are you new?"

And I was like, "No, I started coming to meetings

"10 years ago."

He's all, "Oh, you're 10 years sober?"

I'm like, "No, I drank on the way to the meeting actually."

And he was like, "Well, if you're not new

"and you've been here before, what's gonna be different?

"What are you gonna do different?

"Or are you just gonna be a drunken loser again?

"You're just gonna go out?

"Like what are you gonna do different?

"You've been here before, you act like you know everything."

And I was like, I made the mistake of thinking out loud

and I was like, "Well, I've never gotten a sponsor

"and worked all the steps."

And he said, he got excited, I was like, "Who brought you?"

And I said, "Keon."

I asked Keon to be a sponsor.

And I was like, "I don't know, Keon.

"I just met him yesterday."

And Jeff got all crazy on me and he said,

"Don't be a little bee.

"You're overthinking it, it's not that big of a deal.

"It's not a marriage.

"Ask him to be your sponsor tonight.

"If you change your mind later,

"he can change your sponsors.

"Just take action tonight.

"It's a program of action,

"not of thinking or doing stuff when you feel like it."

And that has served me well to this day.

It's still what I live by.

So I asked Keon to be my sponsor.

I got a big book.

I got a commitment.

I got a home group.

Things I did not want and did not ask for, I got.

And that was the beginning of this sobriety.

When I was about a year sober, Keon relapsed.

And his sponsor told me,

what Keon had been telling me for 11 months,

that the shelf life of the steps is one day,

then I'm not gonna stay sober

in yesterday's program or what I did yesterday.

I only stay sober, safe, sane,

and comfortable on what I do today.

Not yesterday, not what I did last week.

And I didn't believe Keon,

but I believed him when he relapsed.

And I thought alcoholism was like a myth or not real

or something they were using to scare us and keep us in A.

But I knew Keon drank against his will.

He had a sobriety date and A symbols tattooed on his body.

And I know he loved AA,

but he is susceptible to what we all are susceptible,

resting on our laurels, however long that takes.

We don't know.

Guy from my home group, Steve Lopez, Steve L,

says that we all get a certain amount

of idiot time around here.

And we don't know if it's one day, half a day, or 10 years.

And I'm not willing to take that risk.

Today, then I was,

but now it's a matter of life or death for me every day.

And taking it serious every day,

seeing it as a matter of life or death

and taking actions every day and really being on top,

be working my program aggressively

and proactively on a daily basis.

Not only do I stay sober, but my life gets better.

So it's like, I don't look forward to it

and I dread it sometimes.

I'm gonna be honest.

You are the people I can be honest with.

But when I do it and I complete it,

my life progressively gets better

and I get more comfortable in my skin

and I have hope and promise for tomorrow.

Because if I'm left to what I wanna do,

in half a day, I wanna kill myself.

I'm immediately like feeling sorry for myself.

My disease is really shows up as I want what I don't have.

You know, I want other people's stuff.

And I know I'm good.

And then I'm spiritually fit

when I don't want what I don't have

and I'm happy with what I got.

And that's most of the time I'm in that condition

because I treat my alcoholism aggressively and proactively.

And when my, I try to, in my group,

there's stuff to do every day.

And I try to do that.

I sponsor people and talk to other alcoholics every day

that I sponsor.

I talk to my sponsor twice a week on the phone,

my check-in days.

And I talk to my sponsors every day

and I see my sponsor at least twice a week in person,

usually more than twice a week.

And yeah, it's a pain in the ass.

It sucks.

It's a grind.

It's a lot of tedious footwork,

but the alternative is not worth it.

Like always, I feel really comfortable in my skin

and I feel like a man and I can look the world in the eye

and have self-respect.

Things I don't have when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to.

And my sponsor told me the last time I talked to him,

we don't get to feel sorry for ourselves in the end

because I was feeling sorry for myself.

So, key on relapse, and then I moved to Oregon,

got a girl pregnant from a meeting in Silver Lake,

had to come back to LA.

We were trying to raise my son together.

We weren't together.

We never were like boyfriend and girlfriend really,

and never lived together.

Just like I was trying to step up

and do what I was supposed to do, what I've been taught here.

I went for a while without a sponsor.

I was only like over a little over a year sober

and me and her almost killed each other

because I was untreated.

She was untreated.

We weren't going to meetings.

After Keyon went out, I stopped going to my first home group

and I ran into a meeting and tackled the first guy I saw

and begged him to be my sponsor and was like,

"Dude, I'm going insane."

Like this, I got a girl pregnant

and it's totally an overwhelming situation.

And he got me back in the process,

got me back into a program of action.

And that treated all my problems

and took care of all my problems at the time,

which was not employed enough to raise a child.

And then when my son's mother was,

when my son was not even walking yet, he was months old,

his mother relapsed and went to prison.

And I ended up with full legal

and physical custody of a newborn baby.

And when I was drinking and using,

even though I was capable of getting good grades in college,

before I was sober,

they wouldn't have given me custody of a goldfish.

They would have said, "You're in the bushes.

"You're going to kill it."

And I got full custody of an actual human baby.

And I was terrified and uncertain.

And like, I thought I was going to kill the baby.

But people, I leaned harder into Alcoholics Anonymous

and people in AA showed me how to be a father,

helped me take care of my son,

watched him while I went to meetings, babysat him.

I took him to a lot of meetings.

And when he was about a year old,

so if that hadn't happened,

not that I think God got my son's mother drunk

so that I could be a good dad or whatever,

but I got to see my son's first steps

and hear his first words,

things his mother did not get to see

because she was in jail.

And now I'm so grateful for the fact that I've been,

because before that, I was still a dirt bag and selfish.

And if she didn't go to jail,

I didn't go visit my son that often.

And I certainly was not paying her child's,

I was paying it really sporadically.

And then it flipped where I had to change his diapers

and it was kind of like unwilling,

but AA was there.

I had a foundation and I did have a new home group.

And everything I was taking care of

and my son was taking care of.

I met another woman who's 60 days sober.

And I thought, well, this one's cured and married that one.

And that was an experience.

She was taken out of our,

living out of our house in straps down

'cause she tried to kill herself.

She was newly sober.

She did not relapse,

but that let her know that she needed

to work in aggressive program.

And then she got really involved

and was a really, really good member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And when we were in our lives, we're getting better.

And she helped raise my son.

She raised a kid that was not her biological father,

mother, her biological child.

And when his mother got out of jail,

his mother tried to beat up my wife all the time.

And she had to deal with that and she did.

And it was a lot of chaos and drama and court evaluations.

And I got to keep custody and she got visitation.

She ended up getting sober because of the pressures

of trying to be a part of his life.

And the courts are like, either you're sober,

you don't see him.

And so I can't take credit for that nor do I try to,

but she ended up getting sober.

So my son had a really good life.

And his mother, his stepmother, my ex-wife,

went to school.

Her parents were wealthy and paid for school

just since she was sober.

And she ended up getting a PhD in teaching at a university

and being a writer, a professional writer.

And she got academic success, a little bit of fame.

They're flying around the country.

So she would talk at different universities about writing.

And she got to the point where she was, this is her works.

She will tell you this today.

This is what happened.

This is not like what I'm assuming happened.

She gave me an ultimatum and said,

we've been in AA for 10 years.

I'm like, we don't need to do this anymore.

I'm over it.

I feel like I'm fine.

And I had always been taught,

I have alcoholism till the day I die.

And if I have a progressive disease,

that means I'm more alcoholic today

than when I got here 26 years ago.

If I drank, I would not start off where I left off.

I would start off as if I had never stopped drinking

and using, which means I would die.

So Johnny H, he just took a cake at my home group Wednesday

for 63 years.

Johnny H says, if we have a progressive disease,

we need progressive recovery.

So I should be doing more today than I did when I was new.

I should be doing more today than I did last year.

If I do not change my sobriety date, well, every year,

every year when I have a birthday,

I just have a birthday in April, I think, am I doing more?

Am I more responsible?

Am I helping more men?

Am I doing more things

and taking on more responsibility in my home?

And I hope I am, but I have a sponsor for that

to ask him those questions.

And so she was like, it's me or AA.

And I could go with her and enjoy the fruits of her success,

I guess, and mine.

'Cause at that point I'd been promoted at work and die,

or I could stay with AA and live

and then have a whole new adventure.

And so it sucked and it was hard,

but I told her, I tried to make it work

and do as much as I could,

but she left me for another guy.

And then I got the divorce papers

and I was alone with my son for five years.

I was just me and my son.

I was just every day, just being a dad,

didn't really date or hang out with women or whatever.

And then my son, when he was 17,

but I was, my son's mother had married

a really awesome guy in AA who was sober longer than me,

a really successful guy.

And so us three were trying to raise my son

'cause in middle school, he started trying to kill himself

and start using drugs and alcohol as first rehab.

He ended up and was at 17 in Malibu,

one of the adolescent treatment programs.

It was really nice.

I don't wanna ever relapse,

but I was like, I wanna stay here.

This place is awesome.

On the beach, they had personal chefs,

like in a giant mansion and his bedroom,

his bedroom that he shared,

or his personal bedroom in that place

was bigger than our entire house.

And he was there and we went to family and all that

and tried to help him out.

And then, so right now he's probably has two felonies

and he's in jail waiting for a court case

for his third felony from the robbery.

And he's one of us.

I mean, his parents are both alcoholic

and the genetics are not in his favor.

And so I go visit him in jail.

He comes by our house because the kids love Narcan

or love fentanyl.

I have to have a Narcan kid in my house

and I'm 26 years old, but you know, it's obvious.

But you know, they used to tell me when I was new,

we don't shoot our wounded.

We just try to help where we can help and be a good example.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

And now he's back in jail where he's safe.

Actually him being in jail is good news.

And I just celebrated two years of marriage

to this beautiful woman in the front row

who knows me better than anyone and still stays with me,

which is shocking because I'm flawed and imperfect

and still alcoholic and still self-deluded and insane

and childish, grandiose and narcissistic and arrogant.

And those are things not that I am proud of.

I hate those things about me, which is why I try so hard to.

Step six and seven has been a big deal lately for me.

And my discussions with my sponsor,

trying to become more of a, you know,

trying to give those things to God.

'Cause it's not like we had, my sponsor has a baby meeting

where all his sponsors go to his house

and we read the 12 and 12 of the big book.

And we're on step six, six, we were on step six yesterday,

which today, Thursday, we were on step six.

And basically, you know, people were sharing,

yeah, you know, God willing,

he'll take away my character defect.

For now, I'm just, you know, stuck with them

and I'm doing the best I can.

My sponsor said, God's always willing.

The one that's unwilling is you.

So it's not God that's delaying the removal of your,

it's finding, find out what's in you

that is not letting you give that up.

And so that is my task today.

And then taking what I learned through my surrender

of my honor power and growing closer to the center

of alcoholics and I'm passing that on

to the people I sponsor.

So that's all the time I have.

Thank you for letting me be here.

I absolutely love coming here

and really appreciate you letting me share.