Jim's 32-Year Journey: Friendship, Faith, and Fixing Broken Roads

- Hello, my name's Jim and I'm an alcoholic.

- Hey there.

- Thank you everybody for welcoming me.

Thank you, Enrique, for the 10 minute talk.

Enjoyed it, leading the meeting.

First, I'd like to start off by saying

I've been sober a while.

I got a sobriety date, 3/31/92.

I got a sponsor, Paul C.

And Pacific Group is my home group.

You know, before I get started on my talk

of what it was like and what happened,

I'd like to say, you know, the friendships over the years.

I mean, drinking worked for me for a long time, you know?

I mean, I partied and I had a great time.

I started at the age of 13.

But you know, friends are far and few between.

You know, you think you got friends,

you're out there drinking and you know, what happened?

You know, I'd go out to a beer fest with my friends

and they left with a chick or whatever, you know?

Then, well, there's my ride home, you know?

But you know, it was feast or famine.

And you know, like I've been sober a while.

And you know, just recently,

I just wanted to kind of touch base on,

we went four wheeling, three of us alcoholics.

And one of the guys truck broke down.

And this was like, no, this was a big deal

because we couldn't fix it.

I mean, we had everything under the sun

and we got three good guys to glue anything together

and get it out of there.

I mean, I've pulled people off a mountain

to get towed by AAA.

And when I looked under that thing, I said,

"Oh my God, we are effed."

And we just, it was perfect.

I guess it was God's will.

We were bumping and jumping for a whole day.

And we covered a whole,

not even two miles to get up this hill.

And it broke down right at the perfect place

where it backed into a hole.

And that's where we left it.

And you know, if it had happened anywhere else,

you know, we would have been in trouble.

But the thing of it is, we all stuck together.

The three of us were friends.

You know, we went out there and we were like glue.

We packed it up, we left,

we still enjoyed the other two days.

And the three of us went back and got that thing running.

I can tell you, when I was out there drinking and using

with all my pals, my good friends,

none of them would have went back with me, you know.

Nobody would have stuck.

These guys, we're dedicated, you know.

These guys I've known for, you know, 32 years.

I've known Nolan and some of the people in this room know me,

call me by name.

I don't even know who they are sometimes.

I recognize the lady who greeted me and all that.

And I'm still trying to put a point on where I've met her.

So anyway, what it was like.

What it was like, I was a kid growing up in Connecticut.

I had a pretty good home life.

You know, I had really strict parents.

My parents were the type that, you know.

You know, I still, at 32 years of sobriety,

I work on my self-esteem.

My self-esteem is super, super low.

I mean, you know, my dad, I remember,

I loved to get into mechanic stuff.

And they got me into a high school.

So all guys school and I learned about cars.

And, you know, I took automotive.

I remember I worked on his car and this is, you know,

it was a mistake.

Something was wrong.

I did everything to the book,

specifications and it didn't work out.

And when I bought it home to him,

so I knew I shouldn't have trusted you.

He messed it all up.

And so luckily for me, you know,

and I'm a people pleaser because of the strict upbringing.

They never, nobody ever told me

about the good things that I did.

They only told me about where I went wrong.

You know, and that was the old school way, you know.

And Alcoholics Anonymous is teach,

teach and taught me a better way to raise children

because you know, I worked the 12 steps of AA.

So one of the things that I really felt,

felt kind of worried about,

first of all, I had two sisters, you know,

and that kind of pissed me off.

I always wanted a brother.

You know, I had lots of friends that had like five brothers.

They lived in a room, they fought, they did things,

you know, and that looked like something

that was very attractive to me.

And all I had was two sisters

and I was the baby of the family.

So I was pampered and catered to.

And the women in my life always took care of me.

So, you know, I remember they used to tickle me

because they love to see my dimples

and all this kind of stuff.

They made fun of me and all that kind of stuff.

So I always felt less than, you know.

And you know, now after I've been sober a while,

I realize, you know, those smiles and those dimples,

they're not too bad when you go in

and try to get a date, you know.

So I always felt kind of like, you know,

there was something wrong with, you know.

You know, it was a given, you know.

I never felt like I fit in, it's the same old story, you know.

People talk about it.

And then, you know, the one day they took a drink

and everything changed.

So for me, I remember, you know, just having trouble.

I was one of those kids that, you know,

in fact, my oldest one, he's 33 now, he's working.

And you know, he still likes to drink,

but Alcoholics Anonymous has taken my 33 year old

and made a productive citizen out of him

because while he was going to school

and all the trouble he got into,

he worked enough AA to stay sober long enough

to get a high school diploma and get enough education

to go out there and get a job.

And you know, he doesn't do all the other stuff,

but he still likes to drink.

So it's up to him, you know.

But he reminds me of me, you know.

When I went to school, it was the principal.

It was this, and the teacher's like,

"What's wrong with you?"

You know, it's like, and you know,

so I grew up and there really was something wrong with me.

I don't know, I just didn't really particularly care

about what was going on at the front of the class

or on the blackboard or in the projector.

I was always spaced out somewhere else

thinking about something else, you know.

That was just the way I was as a kid.

I got in trouble a lot 'cause I needed the attention.

And you know, they sent me to the principal's office

and back in my day, you'd never go home and say,

"Hey mom, I got in trouble at school today."

They're like, "What'd you do?"

You know, it's like, and I think I got that

inferiority complex from my parents

because they never believed anything I said.

I can remember the rich kids up the street

said I broke their bike and my dad paid for it,

so I didn't touch the kid's bike, you know,

but they never believed me, you know.

So I had that thing where even today,

if somebody asks me a question and I answer it,

I think, "Well, they're not gonna believe me."

You know, it just kind of stays in there.

So one day, a friend of mine and I were like,

"Yeah, we wanna get high."

You know, I've always, you know, I didn't start out like,

you know, I took a drink, threw up,

and that's not my story where, you know,

it just took me off on a tangent

where I just went crazy with drinking it.

It started slowly.

I had a grandfather that was an alcoholic.

My mom and dad were not alcoholics,

and I can remember my dad having a session with gambling,

and he almost lost everything, you know,

'cause he was, you know, he was obsessed with it.

And my grandfather, on the other hand, was a pure alcoholic,

and so was my father's mother.

It was my father's side of the family

where the alcohol comes from as far as I'm concerned,

and he used to take me out to this place

called J.D. Von Brill, the north end of Hartford,

with his friend, and then they'd give me two bucks

to go to McDonald's, and by the time I got back,

they'd be sauced in the bar, you know,

and then I'd start sipping their beers here and there,

and there'd be funerals, and I'd grab the black labels

and drink the homemade Italian wine

from the kid across the street.

And what happened was is that, you know, one day,

you know, I'd bomb it all over the place

with a bottle of Southern Comfort and some weed,

but where it all hit for me was

I was with a friend at a Boy Scout campground,

and we were smoking a joint on a tree this fall over,

and we just walked away from all the other Scouts,

and there was two of us sitting on a tree,

and at the very same time, we both stood up

and said it was a smile, and we went back

to the knot-tying class with the Scoutmaster,

and it was perfect, we were laughing,

and you know, that just took away everything.

It took away the fear, it made me feel like I belonged,

and it made me feel like I finally arrived, you know?

And at that point, you know, life was good, you know?

I had picked up a bunch of friends.

It started in the eighth grade,

because that's when that thing happened for me.

I got loaded and went to tech school.

It was an all-guys school, an all-girls school up the hill.

What a combination, being a teenager, looking at that.

So we ended up, you know, I lost my train of thought.

We ended up, I ended up going to that school,

and we had kegs, and it worked, alcohol worked.

And I stuck with, you know, cocaine.

I know this is alcoholics and others.

Cocaine, pot, and beans.

And because one day, this kid gave me this MicroDot,

it was acid or something, and we were having lunch,

and it just freaked me out.

I couldn't feel the brake pedal.

I thought I was moving, and I stopped.

And I remember I couldn't wait to come down off

as I went back to class, and it just, it is just never again.

And at that point, I made a pact with myself

that if I couldn't start it, smoke it, or drink it,

what's gonna do it?

Because putting a pill in your mouth

or a needle in your arm, it's like, you're done.

It's like, you're gonna get,

you're gonna get what you're gonna get,

whether you like it or not.

So I made that pact with myself,

and I'll tell you later on in my story

that when I was about ready to put a needle in my arm,

or something like that, so.

So anyway, it worked.

You know, I went to beer fast, this and that,

and I had problems with my parents,

because, you know, things weren't,

I wasn't doing it right, they weren't real strict.

And one day, one night, I went out to a bar,

and I was a street racer, you know,

like, in a nice car.

The fastest thing that I've ever owned back then

was a Kawasaki 900, when it was all souped up.

And, you know, I went out, we were found in,

and I decided I was gonna show off

and do one of those burnouts,

and I forgot to put my feet down.

And, you know, the bike went off

from underneath me in the parking lot,

and I was all drunk and messed up,

and my buddy picked me up, and he says,

"Here, let me take you from right on your bike,

in my motorcycle."

And I didn't put my feet down, I was on the back,

I mean, I didn't lock them under the pegs,

and then he took off, and my,

all that was there was a little bar,

and as soon as he took off, I wasn't that drunk.

I knew I had to hold on,

and my feet were up, and like this, hitting his ears.

And when I got my legs, finally, back under the foot pegs,

he was doing 90 on a street that was smaller

than a certain way out there.

And so they took me back to the bar,

went in, 'cause, you know, we all drove separate.

He said, "How do you feel now?"

He said, "Can you drive home?"

I said, "Sure, yeah, before I can drive."

Well, what am I gonna say, no?

I mean, back when I came from the drinking age,

I was 18, and if you got pulled over,

and you had a car full of beer bottles,

they'd say, "Well, why are you keeping those beer bottles?"

Well, they're worth 15 cents a piece.

You know, how many beers do you drink?

A few, and they'd usually just let you go, you know.

They didn't ask that you were drinking.

And so I drove home, and the motorcycle,

you know, the next day, all I could remember

was waking up to my dad with an ounce of pot,

waving it in my face, saying, "What's this?"

And then, you know, my boots were all scratched.

My face was, had road rash on it.

My jeans were ripped while I was fully clothed,

laying in the bed.

The motorcycle was on the front lawn, laying down.

It wasn't in the kickstand.

And they just looked at me and said,

"You know, you know how that goes, you know how that goes."

They weren't crying to me at all, you know.

They were just fed up.

You know, we're afraid you're gonna kill yourself,

and we don't want to watch, so we think it's time,

you know, maybe you find yourself a place.

I was living at home, you know, I was 20 years old.

And so, for me, of course, I did a geographic.

You know, a friend of mine came out right after that,

you know, and they were saying,

"Well, you know, I was working, I was a shop for work,

"so I was a functioning alcoholic."

A friend of mine came out that I knew from high school

who had some experience with L.A., and he said,

"Jim, you know," he goes, "L.A.'s the place to go."

I said, "Why is that?"

He goes, "You'll double your salary."

He says, "When you go to D&B, you don't need car insurance

"to register a vehicle, you just show up,

"and, you know, you can get away with all this stuff."

And so, I came out here, and with nothing on my back,

and 300 bucks in my pocket,

a bunch of tools that got ripped off on the way,

'cause I was too young, and I asked the guy for insurance,

he didn't give it to me, and I bet you those tools,

you know, I had like $10,000 worth of tools.

I was a diesel truck mechanic, and all that stuff,

probably never got on a plane in New Jersey, who knows?

But I made it.

My pride and my ego would not let me down, man.

There was no way I was gonna go home, and, you know,

and of course, I made a vow to stay sober, you know,

when I came out here, but that didn't work

for like two weeks.

You know, I was with this guy that, you know,

let me stay with him for a while,

and then I met this Blackfoot Indian

who had dung and skunk and mushrooms, and, you know,

he says, "You can move in with me,"

and that's what we did in the morning.

We got high in the morning, and we got high at the break.

It was just crazy insane.

So, you know, eventually, I'll fast forward to where

I ended up moving out of my home many, many years later,

and Whittier, I had this shack,

and I worked for a plastics company in Pasadena,

and I hooked up with an old friend that I met,

and I said, "Hey, I wanna pay my car.

"I need some meth and ketamines,"

and I had no idea that the guy that was,

one guy that I was working with, you know,

I had to sit down with him, 'cause, you know,

we just know, you know, they knew that I was a pot smoker

and a beer drinker, but when I started doing that flow,

this one goes, "Hey, you look, yeah, you want some low?"

And I remember him, he's like, "Oh, I got a whole pocket,"

and this guy was cooking it out, Temecula, man,

and so I did this for like three years,

and what happened was is I noticed that this friend

that I knew that I'd met like eight years earlier,

and I cooked back up with him, his teeth were all black.

He stuttered, and all those guys that I worked with,

their teeth were falling out.

They were black.

They were stuttering, and so one day, I said,

"I gotta get sober," and my boss gave me a week off,

and I couldn't get sober.

I couldn't stop.

It's that thing where you just say,

"I'm gonna stay up 'til midnight.

"I'm gonna go home," and then I'd start on a Thursday

or a Friday, say, "I'm gonna work on my car 'til midnight,

"and I'm gonna go home," and the next thing I knew,

it was Monday morning, and the girls were coming back

in the office, and I was laying down all stinked up

on the couch in the front, and then I'd get up,

and I'd do more blow, drink a little beer to level it out.

That's what it was about for me.

It was about weed, booze, and the speed

to keep me what I call the plateau so that I could function,

but at the end, I wasn't functioning anymore.

I was out of my mind, and I couldn't get sober in a week,

so here it is.

I'm gonna go back out.

It's Sunday.

I gotta get back to work on Monday,

and my mind's telling me you can't do it without the stuff,

so I called the guy up, and I started heading out

to get some more stuff, and I drove my car over the median

on Cleveland Road going up over to get to the 60

to go out to the desert, and I drove my car over the median,

and I remember going into an alpha-beta parking lot,

and it was just one of those things.

I guess it was God looking over me

because Calima Road was a pretty heavily traveled road,

and I said, "Oh, my God.

"I just could've killed somebody.

"I could've got killed."

I just drove across the whole frickin' road

in the oncoming traffic and ended up

in an alpha-beta parking lot,

and I drove home with this fender clicking on the tire,

and then from then on, I had some previous experience

with a gal that was working a program

through Cocaine Anonymous at that facility

that I worked for and stayed up,

and so I found her and called her,

and she took me to a meeting.

She took me to my first meeting.

It was at Los Encinas Hospital in Pasadena,

and I remember thinking, "You know, the girls are pretty,"

and then they said, "All other mind-authoring substances,"

and I'm like, "Wait a minute.

"I thought you guys were gonna teach me how to drink

"without doing blow."

Really, what I thought.

It's like, I didn't think that they were gonna say,

"Hey, you gotta stop drinking, too,"

and so I went out on a tangent

for about another month or so.

I ended up partying really, really hard,

drinking and smoking my weed,

'cause I know it's alpha.

I just love weed.

I just loved it.

It was my drug of choice,

and so I got all messed up, and I woke up.

I'm gonna go to that meeting at Los Encinas Hospital,

9 o'clock, so I show up at the meeting,

and I raised my hand as a newcomer again,

and the guy that did the chips that day says,

"Oh, I'm leaving town, I'm gonna go.

"Somebody has to take my commitment,"

so then, of course, the guy next to me goes,

"All right, now I'm gonna make this guy right here,"

and so, "All right, second film,"

and the guy gives me, "Hey, you're the chip guy."

Okay, and now I'm the chip guy,

and the secretary gets up, and he goes,

"This guy's name's Gary, Gary Castillo."

He goes, "Gary C."

So Gary's gonna be your temporary sponsor,

and he's all smiling.

I'm like, "Okay, cool."

So that's the first day I went home

with a big book for alcoholic snobs.

Now, a little Gary, Gary was cool.

I didn't really have a lot of respect for Gary.

He's all, "Oh, I'm an ex-hybrid patrol, and I was addicted

"to prescription drugs coding."

Like, "What, coding?"

He says, "Here, this is a big book."

He goes, "Take this big book."

He goes, "I know you got five bucks in your pocket,"

and I did, I was pretty much broke, but I still had a job.

I had a car with no insurance,

and I wasn't doing anything else with my life,

but I still had the ability to earn money,

and he says, "I have five bucks."

He goes, "You can have this $35,000 program for $5."

He goes, "People like you rarely ever get it."

He says, "Two percent of people

"that come to Alcoholics Anonymous

"or Cocaine Anonymous actually stay."

He said, "But you can have what I have,

"paid $35,000 through my insurance twice."

He said, "You can have it for five bucks."

So I gave him the five bucks and took the big book.

He's now, "Go home and read one page a night

"and get on your knees every morning.

"Call me every day."

Now, I call the guy every day, but if I was lucky,

he picked up the phone once a week,

and so he took me up to step three,

and I did what I, you know, I did my meeting.

He goes, "Do 90 meetings in 90 days

"and read a page of this book every night."

So I ended up, this guy being my sponsor,

you know, I went to meetings, I went to step studies

all around Pasadena, and life got good for me real quick

because I wasn't spending my paycheck on drugs and alcohol.

So this one lady, this one guy, and the machinist goes,

you know, "My landlord's got a place over there

"in Temple City."

So I started to get well, physically well, pretty quick.

You know, I started riding a bike to work three days a week.

I started going to meetings, of course, in cocaine

in August at the time, if you had double digits Friday,

you were really old.

You had nine, 10 years, and most of the people there

had like two years, three years, but they were dedicated.

They, you know, they made me a secretary.

I, you know, I was like, I got really frustrated

because nobody really wanted to stay, you know.

It's like I'd get, my secretary or my treasurer

would take off with the money, you know,

then I'd be at the meeting, and I'd be the only,

I'd run the whole meeting, and I'd be like,

here, I came here, they greeted me, and you guys,

this is a functioning meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous

because there was people here,

why do they have this speaker going and stuff,

and everything was, you guys are committed,

is what I'm trying to say.

And so this lady comes up to me and goes,

"Hey, you know, I think you should go to the Pacific."

Really?

And so she says, "I know this guy, John,

"and he'll help you out."

And so I met John, and then I went and listened

to this guy, John, John M., cast away now.

I don't know if anybody knows him, John Middleton.

I went to this place called the Ronnie Theater

because this girl lost and seemed to sit here.

There's a meeting, I forget when that was,

Tuesday night or Thursday night,

and it starts at 730 or eight, show up.

So this guy was so spiritual, and he reminded me of me

'cause he said, "I'm gonna stick a needle in my arm

"and swear and I'll jump."

I bend my head over, throw in the dumpster.

He said, "The next day, I'd wake up,

"and I'd dive in that dumpster."

And I could remember throwing my speed and my pot,

my cigarettes and all this crap in my dumpster

in my apartment, and the next morning,

I'd wake up and say, "I need that,"

and I'd dive back in the dumpster to get it.

So I went up to him, and he was so spiritual.

I think he had three or four years to write.

And I said, "Yeah, my sponsor's got me doing the third step."

And he said, "Can you help me with that?"

I'm having a real hard time.

I was raised as a Catholic,

and I'd go to confession to admit my sins.

I just didn't like my God, it was a punishing God.

And I used to remember thinking that if there is a hell,

I'm sure they're gonna gain there.

That's just gonna be, that's gonna be it.

I'm going to hell for some of the things that,

and my mother's mother was gonna be a nun,

and then she decided to have children.

So you can imagine how strict the upbringing

that we had was, and it is what it is.

So he says, "Hey, come down tomorrow night.

"There's a step study."

And I couldn't believe it.

I walked in, and I was the only guy there,

and then all of a sudden, people started showing up.

I think there was probably about, maybe about five or six,

eight of us, I don't remember, there was quite a few of us.

I'd say like maybe six.

And there was me and one other guy in a room,

and there was other rooms there where they set up tables,

and they told you to put your feet on the ground.

They gave us paper, and they gave us columns.

And we wrote, we did an inventory.

It wasn't a step study, it was an inventory.

It was a four-step way, they called it the Foul Table Method.

And they talked, and they talked all night,

and they fooled us.

They said they gave us coffee, but it was decaf, you know?

It was like, you know, I wrote all night,

and the speakers that were coming in were rotating.

And he said, "Every time you get a resentment,

"or you identify with something, put it down on the paper,

"and then page numbers and all this stuff."

And I remember writing down all my resentments

and all this stuff, and then we did the four-step,

the fourth and the fifth step.

It was like eight o'clock in the morning.

I got there at eight o'clock at eight p.m.

on a Friday night and left at like eight a.m.

on Saturday morning.

And there was a bunch of us.

I kind of heard a few fifth steps.

And what I've realized is that, you know, as an alcoholic,

I believe that you could take an alcoholic

and kind of turn us upside down and shake us.

And very similar stuff would come out of our ears, you know,

because of the feelings and the resentments that I get.

You know, they're very similar.

And I ended up asking that guy to sponsor me.

And I remember, you know, he was part of the Pacific group,

so he brought me to the Pacific group.

And Clancy, I don't know if anyone else is Clancy I,

but Clancy had just become his sponsor.

And Frank Jones was the secretary

of the Wednesday night meeting.

And so I identified, I think it's important if you're new

that you identify with alcoholics anonymous

and identify that you are an alcoholic.

And that night after I had done and learned about

Abby Thacker and the Big Book and, you know,

the fast track to the steps is really in Bill's story.

And it's like, oh, it's about humility,

about identification, about making restitution.

That's really the best I could explain it.

And that guy, you know, he looked at that paper, man,

and he was good.

He says, you know, we're gonna start doing some amends.

You know, we're gonna make a list

and then I'm gonna walk you through the amends.

And, you know, and one of the things that I thought

was kind of unique, he says, one of the persons

or people that you need to make amends to,

this is the most important, he goes,

you need to make amends to yourself

and where you've been living all your life.

And he set me up on a payment program with my parents

to pay back all that back rent I never paid

and some other stuff that I had screwed over,

some bosses and some employment.

You know, there was a lot of stuff on the paper

that I can't get into, but he walked me through

and also told me where I shouldn't make amends

would be, would injure them or others or myself, you know.

And it was great, you know, I started doing it.

I started sending cash to my mom.

He goes, don't, you don't send her a check.

He goes, 'cause, you know, she's not gonna cash it.

He goes, you send her cash.

You send her the letter, you know, you tell her sorry.

And so I did that for a really long time

and it was quite a long time.

And one day she says, okay, you know, I like the letters,

you know, you know, really happy for you that you got sober,

but how long are you gonna work that damn program?

Excuse my language, forever, you know.

It's like, you know, 'cause I could go home

and I'd be going to meetings and it's been 32 years now.

And, you know, my moms and I can,

they don't understand why I have to keep going to meetings.

You know, I just keep going to meetings

and keep working my program.

So that's kind of funny.

But it just kept going, you know.

I mean, I got a life beyond my wildest dreams

with alcoholics and autonomous, you know,

getting sober was the best thing that ever happened to me.

And I didn't know it.

And I think that night was just the tip of the iceberg

because I realized after like going through like therapy

and going to doctors, like, you know, and getting therapy,

you know, therapy kind of works 'til you walk out the door.

You know, it's like, and I identified with Clancy.

Well, Clancy would say, you know what, you know,

if alcohol was my problem, when I put the plug in the jug,

everything would be fine.

But that's when all the chaos started.

So I identified with that.

And then the one of the things that I really identified

with there really made me stay with alcoholics and autonomous

is when I went to the Pacific group and heard Frank Jones.

(indistinct)

Oh my God, I was the only idiot that ever fought people

in the front of me.

Like, you know, throwing their items going in,

you're holding me up.

Don't you know how important I am?

I gotta get out of here.

So I stayed.

And then I remember getting kind of like a little resentment.

And you know, one thing for me is if you make me mad,

I'm gonna show you.

And that's how I stayed sober

because one day I was in that meeting at Las Encinas

and some girl told me, "You can't get this program."

She said, "I bet you can't even get a year."

And I went, "Oh yeah, you watched."

Watch me get a year, lady.

I mean, I might've been dry and really angry,

but I'm gonna get that year.

I'm gonna take that cake, you know?

And I did.

But when I went into the Pacific group,

I remember Clancy's like, "Put the ball down, kid."

I went to the yard, I went to the yard.

And there was Clancy, like, "I'm picking up the team."

And I looked at him, I'm like, "Okay, yeah."

And I'm like, "Yeah, I will, all right, fine."

So I went to the back of the line.

And then everybody's coming up to me

'cause I had a mustache, you know?

Who knew?

They all knew I was new, right?

They knew I was new to the group.

They say, "Oh."

And then I remember Frank saying to me,

"You're welcome back, kid,

"but get rid of the facial hair."

So yeah, I went shaved and, you know,

I went for a long time into the Pacific group.

I went to the yard.

So for the first 10 years of my sobriety,

I worked a solid Pacific group program.

I did, like, you know, in the beginning,

I did my 90 meetings in 90 days.

I did what the sponsor asked me to in the beginning.

And then I went and I had, at the end,

I did for 10, 11 years,

I had three Pacific group committed meetings.

And then I met a lady and we, you know, we had kids.

You know, she had a kid already.

And I have two kids, biological kids with her.

And, you know, life's in session, man.

It was like, I never thought that I would have a family.

And, you know, for me, the way I reacted to children

and the discipline that I had when I was growing up,

I tried to bring that into my marriage.

And it didn't work, right?

Off the bat.

And, you know, you can control me with fear.

I had just done an inventory versus steps.

I'm gonna be working.

You would think that I've already done 12, but I haven't.

I'm 32 years sober and I've done all the way up to 10 twice

and I'm gonna work 10.

But this time I worked the steps with a friend,

one at a time, very slow, one at a time.

And, you know, I've got like three, four pages.

And when I got to the fear part, I'm like, oh my God,

you know, here I am standing in front of you

at 32 years of sobriety

and realizing how much I've lost out in life

because fear is controlling everything that's around me.

I mean, I've got a good life, don't get me wrong,

but now I'm gonna go through a different phase,

I think, where it's gonna be very, very beneficial to me

to keep sharing and maybe if a guy wants to sponsor him

or something, you know, help somebody else

with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But it's really changed my life.

And my wife, you know, like I remember the first time

we had a kid and she's autistic

and he's like running up and down in the tub.

And so I just went like that 'cause I got to pow pow

all the time and that's the key.

My mom used to stay in those plywood little paddles

with the thing when the ball would break off,

she'd flick them on your butt, you know, there you go.

I'll wash your mouth out with an onion,

you say that F word again.

And she did, she would, she put soap in your mouth.

She didn't pull the rest.

When I did that to my kid, my wife's a social worker.

She said, you do that again and you'll never see

that kid again.

So I went, oh, and there's the fear kicked in.

So then, you know, years later when he came home

with nail polish on his fingers and I thought,

oh my God, what's going on?

I was able to handle it because now we're looking

at a guy that's gone through some more steps

and, you know, I've gone through my daughter,

through my stepson and then my daughter and yeah.

So who knows what's happening.

Have a relationship with those children today

because I don't, I love that my condition,

you know, I pretty much do for them what they can't do

for themselves as they were growing up

and now it's about acceptance, you know.

Because if I don't accept them, I'm gonna do the same thing

that my parents did to me.

I'm gonna be like, I left and I drank and used

over those feelings and then I left the nest

because I couldn't tell them anything, you know.

So when my kid, I asked my kid questions

and he answers them but I don't, you know,

I'm sure he can tell sometimes like when he gives me

an answer or she gives me an answer

that I don't wanna hear which is probably, you know,

often, for me it's often but, you know, whatever.

It's like I love them unconditionally

and we have a relationship because of that.

I go camping with my daughter.

We, you know, we just went out in an excursion

and my daughter made me chili and I do things for her

and, you know, like tonight before the meeting,

she goes, oh, I thought you weren't gonna be home.

You want me, you want a plate of food before you go speak?

And, you know, she's, you know, my wife and I

are going through like a separation right now

and, you know, she goes to ALDA which has blew me away

and so, you know, I thought my wife was gonna turn around

like she did that thing with the DCFS thing

and her social worker stuff and she was just gonna

manipulate those children to absolutely hate me

but didn't work out that way yet.

So, and I don't think it ever will

because of ALQALYX Anonymous, you know,

because, you know, the kids are all grown now

and I'm back in the AA in full swing of doing my meetings

and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.

In Austin, when I get stuck on something

and what I've learned to do in ALQALYX Anonymous

is just do the next indicated step, you know,

you just do that step, you know, whatever.

Sometimes it's just like, oh, I need to get up

and get in the car and start to go to work

because my head, the committee in my head

starts talking to me about my day

and it's chaos in there, you know?

But if I just remembered, yeah, I need to do

the next indicated step.

You know, I do the prayer a lot and, you know,

I do, I learn to pray, I learn to do the third step prayer

and the serenity prayer.

I'm working on my character defects right now

'cause I have a few of them still left

and, you know, I actually, we kind of have a lot of time

but there was a time where I wrote in the big book

that some of us like to keep those character defects

and you know what, I'm ready to let go of some of those

that years ago that I kept.

So before I ended up, I have to tell you this,

I have a great life because of Alcoholics Anonymous

and in my 32th sobriety, I've only done the steps,

like three times I've done the steps.

The fast way, I've done the seven questions

and I've also done it with a friend one at a time.

So, you know, I appreciate, thank you for asking me

to come out and share my experience,

trying to help you.

I hope I said something that benefits somebody,

either online or in the room or a new guy.

Thank you very much.