Danny's Journey: From Teen Alcoholism to 30+ Years Sober

- Hey everybody, Danny Alcoholic, everybody over there.

I don't go to a lot of in-person meetings these days,

so it's nice to be out in the world away from my kids.

I was thinking while you were sharing, Bill,

like there's a lot of things that are very different,

but so many things are also the same about our stories.

And that's kind of the beauty of AA

and the 12 step rooms is we all kind of come

from these different backgrounds

and we have these different experiences,

but there's all this other stuff that's in common

that we have in common and then the same solution, you know?

So kind of following suit with how you introduce yourself.

It's also weird.

I was dreaming about speaking to this meeting last night.

It's really fucking weird.

And I have very vivid, strange dreams

about lots of kind of stuff,

but for some reason about this,

I wasn't thinking about it too much all week.

And then last night I was thinking about,

I didn't know what the room looked like.

I don't know if there's going to be like a thousand people

or two people or what they deal with,

but I woke up this morning and I was like,

"What the fuck is that?"

Sorry, profanity.

But thank you for asking me to come out early.

Appreciate it.

I love AA and other 12 step programs I go to.

A few of them, AA is one of the ones

where I feel the most comfortable.

My sobriety date is January 17th, 1994.

I was one of those teenagers.

I was in that meeting 'cause I got sober when I was 17

and I've stayed since.

And so I know there are a lot of people

that have like long, very long careers

of drinking and using and all that.

And mine was very short.

But what that gives me also was like,

I'm lucky enough to have grown up in these rooms

and learn about how to live life

through how the 12 steps works in my life

and make a lot of mistakes and screw up

and then have people put their arms around me

and say, "It's okay."

I feel really blessed to have that experience,

to be able to do life in a safe place.

Everybody has that chance.

I have family members, my sister in particular,

who I think is like borderline personality,

who's like always talked to me about how lucky I am

that I have a program.

You can go to Al-Anon, you can do stuff

just 'cause you're not in the alcoholic necessarily,

but you have people in your life.

There's been a few of us in your life.

You can take advantage of this.

I do come from an alcoholic family, not in my home,

but through jeans.

My mother's father was an alcoholic.

He loved tequila.

He would show up at my parents' house after a breakup

with one of his many girlfriends with a case tequila,

just ready to party or whatever,

and they'd be like, "What are you doing?"

And so my first hangover was actually with him

when I was, I think, 14.

I went to tennis camp.

He lived in Newport Beach.

I went to tennis camp for a week in Irvine,

and then I stayed at his house,

and we had margaritas, I guess.

What they were, I thought they were lemonade.

They tasted good before dinner, at dinner,

and then I woke the next day on the couch.

I'm just like, ugh.

My mom came pick, and she was like, "What did you do?"

So I kind of started experimenting at 14,

lots of different things, alcohol and doing things

that dumb teenage boys do, like violence

and smoking things out of the cabinet

to see if it'll do anything, and egging people,

and just all kind of stupid, destructive teenage boy stuff.

And I also had an uncle that was an alcoholic,

and he would sneak away at family functions

and just be gone for a little while,

and I never knew why until he got sober

around the same time that I did,

and we eventually started going to meetings together.

So I have it possibly that it manifests other ways

in my family as well, not substance-related.

I also come from some abuse in my actual home.

My mom was very fearful, scared person,

and she took her fear of the world out on me and my sister.

She was physically and emotionally abusive to us

from me being very small until I was a teenager,

and I've talked a lot about this in therapy lately,

but doesn't tell you it's big enough

to get back in her face, you know?

And I have a lot of anger issues,

and I inherited that from her.

And now I'm dealing that again in a different way

because I have a son who's special needs,

and he's very angry and scared,

and he's very intense and abusive to the rest of us.

And so, you know, I see that.

I see sort of this stuff in him too.

And so for me, I also grew up in athletics.

We never really had alcohol or drugs in the home.

My parents did not do drugs at all.

They had beer in the house like three times

when I was a kid.

We had a bottle of this like really crappy rum

in the cabinet for like 15 years,

and then eventually I just drank it.

So, and I was, you know, not the stuttering thing,

but I was cripplingly shy

until I started getting drunk and loaded.

And I didn't know how to talk to strangers.

I got in trouble first.

I got arrested at 14 for shooting a pellet gun

off my roof at strangers and then lighting M80s.

So the realtor that was shown in the building

thought it was a rifle and called the cops.

When I was arrested and part of my sentencing

was I needed to go to counseling.

And so the guy was like, "You're fine.

You're just a kid.

Like, what do you want to work on?"

I was like, "I don't know how to talk to anybody."

So we started working on that and that really helped.

But what really helped was like smoking pot

and getting drunk really, really helped.

You know, I started drinking at 14.

Like I said, I got a job at this little grocery store.

And I lived out here.

We moved here when I was 11 from Atlanta, Georgia

to like a studio city area.

There was a little small mom and pop store.

And I got a job there towards the end of ninth grade.

And I worked at the register

and I also restocked all the beer and all the stuff.

And so I would steal alcohol from there.

Friends would steal alcohol from their jobs.

'Cause we all sort of had the same kind of jobs,

these local small stores.

And so we started drinking

and I started drinking on a regular basis at 15.

I started smoking pot around the same time

and I fell in love with that.

So that happened every day.

And then shortly after that,

I started experimenting with LSD and I really liked that.

So that started happening on a very often basis too.

And that was kind of it.

Like back in the early 90s, like, you know,

I knew some kids that were getting into speed,

but teenagers weren't necessarily shooting heroin.

It wasn't like the stuff is today.

If I was a wake up sign, I really loved it.

And even getting sober, it took me a while

to realize that I also was an alcoholic.

I definitely relate to the behavior

as it applies to psychedelics and pot and alcohol now.

But for a long time, I didn't.

'Cause I didn't drink every day.

I drank every weekend and sometimes I drank every day,

but sometimes I didn't.

And I also had that sort of idea of like,

well, the classic alcoholic is like some old guy

that like can't stop like hitting cars with his car

and like all this kind of stuff.

And it was bad.

And what eventually happened was my anger,

like also that was kind of like my remedy.

Like, you know what I've learned?

I worked in treatment for a long time as well.

So I kind of talk clinically about a lot of stuff.

What I realized by doing the work and around here

is that I get drunk because I feel emotionally uncomfortable.

I'm angry, I'm depressed, I'm scared, all those things.

And so my solution is to do that.

And unfortunately I have that gene that once I start,

I can't, you know, I can't quit.

And I think that's what makes me an alcoholic

and makes me different from the person down the street

who doesn't do that.

Everyone has something to try to deal with their problems,

but you know, mine is that I get loaded

and it feels really good and then I can't stop.

But my anger had gotten really bad.

The fighting with my mom had escalated.

My parents became aware that I was getting loaded,

asked me to stop.

I said, sure, and I didn't.

And I kept getting worse.

And eventually they said, hey, let's go to counseling.

At first they said, either you can stop or you can leave.

I was like, well, let me get my backpack

and get the hell out of here.

And I went and stayed with some friends.

And then they said, let's go to counseling.

I said, okay.

And the counseling wound up being an intake

at a kids psych hospital in Rosemead.

And they left me there.

And I was there for three weeks in a lockdown facility

with a bunch of other kids from 11 to 17.

I was 17 and my hair was already falling out

and I had a lot of facial hair.

And the kids all thought I was someone's dad

who came to visit.

That was my first exposure to 12 Step.

They brought in panels.

And I really wanted things to be different.

I wanted to feel better.

I wanted my relationships to be better,

but I wasn't sure how to do that.

The stuff that they brought in, the literature

and the stories, I just didn't, I didn't understand.

I think it doesn't sound like there's anybody new,

but if you're newish and this sounds really weird, it is.

This is like completely different language

than you might speak somewhere else.

And you have to learn how to sort of get into this culture.

So at the time it was like a kind of a kid basically.

And I was like, I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me.

And, but I wanted to be sober.

And I stayed sober for like a week after I left there.

I had to sign this contract that if I got loaded again,

I would be out of the house again.

And I stayed sober, then I was at a party

that I shouldn't have been at.

And they were passing a pipe around

and it went a couple laps around me and then I hit it,

but there was none left.

So I went in the kitchen and I had been drinking

like a raspberry Snapple.

There was a jug of gin and tonic in there

that no one was touching.

And so I poured my Snapple into it and then I drank it.

I drank the whole bowl.

And so when I look back at like my alcoholism,

like that's a big indicator.

I was stealing alcohol.

You know, I also didn't like the taste of beer,

but I drank a lot of it.

I realized at 20 years sober that I would use LSD

like some people use cocaine.

Like you can take coke and you can drink all night

and you feel like you don't have those adverse effects.

Well, I learned that if I drank and then took acid,

I would feel sick and gross and had a bad trip.

But if I took acid first, I could drink all night,

tasted pretty good actually,

'cause I was thirsty as hell and I could,

so I did that unconsciously.

I didn't realize that well into my sobriety.

But I relapsed, then I started going to meetings

like I was supposed to,

but I was using before the meetings and after the meetings.

And then eventually I got a dirty drug test.

I was confronted again, asked to leave and I left.

So I spent a couple of weeks kind of bumming around LA

and I lived in the Valley,

but a lot of my friends lived in Hollywood

'cause I went to high school there.

And my sort of moment of clarity was on January 15th, 1994,

I took mushrooms for the last time.

And I was down at my friends at Park La Brea,

which is this big apartment complex, at least like high-rises

and I wasn't welcome anywhere.

Like at that point, none of my friends wanted,

my parents felt comfortable with me in their house

and I didn't really have to go, it was cold,

but they were like,

"Look, you can stay up on the roof if you want."

So I went up on the roof of this building

and I had all these plans

about what I was gonna do the next day.

I was gonna get my car.

I started playing music and get my guitar.

I'm gonna go touring and do this whole thing.

It's gonna be awesome.

And then I came down at like four in the morning

and I was like, "None of that shit is gonna happen."

I'm a horrible guitar player at this point.

I've been playing for a couple of years,

but I wasn't very good at it and it just wasn't realistic.

It was mushrooms.

And I stayed there with my friends

and we got loaded the whole next day.

And then I had been given a chance,

told that there was, if I wanted help,

I can call my parents

and they would get me into this treatment center.

And so that's what I did.

The evening of January 16th of that year,

about 10 o'clock, I called my dad and my parents

and just said, "I'll try it.

"Can you come get me?"

So he picked me up.

He took me down to Braben Hospital in Culver City.

And I moved into the sober living.

I was telling Nate earlier,

Braben Hospital at the time

had this chemical dependency unit.

It's rehab, but one floor.

And then you didn't live there.

We lived on this street next door

that had seven houses, sober living houses.

And that's where we lived.

And then you'd go eat in the cafeteria.

It was kind of a crazy setup,

but I wound up staying there for a year.

But I moved in there.

I woke up to the Northridge earthquake the next day.

Even though it was in Santa Monica,

our Culver City store got hit fairly bad.

But I just kind of, I woke up and went back to sleep.

So they teased me the next day

about being the kid that slept through the earthquake.

But that was my first day sober.

And I've been sober ever since.

And initially my plan was I can make it to the next few months

until my 18th birthday and then I can do whatever I want.

I just want a shower.

I want some food.

Maybe I could put on some clean clothes.

I had a bag with me,

but it was like a couple of changes of clothes

and a bunch of like cassette tapes at my Walkman.

And they got me up.

They let me sleep.

They got me up.

They fed me.

They walked me around.

They introduced me to everybody

and kind of got me settled.

And then I started going to groups

and it was my last semester of high school.

Schools were closed for like a week

because of the earthquake.

And so I went to treatment

and it was super awkward and uncomfortable.

And I was much younger than most of the people there.

But what started to happen is going to these groups

and these meetings and being really open

and vulnerable about what was happening.

And then starting like really intensive family therapy

with my parents was that I really sort of,

I really fell in love with the people

that I was in treatment with.

Like you were talking about all the support

and all those people.

And we were telling the most deepest, darkest secrets

and we were crying with each other, doing all this stuff.

And then I started, as we started going to meetings,

they took us to meetings every day.

I started to find meetings where I felt more comfortable.

'Cause I initially didn't really feel comfortable

at any meetings, but there's meeting for those potheads.

I started to go there and that felt really comfortable.

And that was kind of my gateway

into feeling more comfortable here.

And eventually, you know, a few months in I realized,

oh, I do drink like an alcoholic, you know.

And also that it's not really about the substance,

it's about the behavior.

And alcoholic thinking are not a lot of different things.

That's continued well into sobriety.

I still have to keep an eye on certain things.

The obsession to drink and get loaded

was taken away pretty quickly for me.

I think what I had been wanting for a long time

was acceptance and support and love.

And I found that immediately, like I said, in the race.

And so it really took a lot of that need

to be high all the time away.

And I also realized like I couldn't out drink

my circumstances.

I thought that if I could just continue to do what I want

and people would just leave me alone, I'd be okay.

And I could just do whatever I want.

And that just wasn't working, you know.

And I have a low tolerance for emotional pain.

And so, you know, it was a short career.

It was intense, but apparently it was enough for me.

And so I've stayed and, you know, I did it.

I kind of also like, I see a lot of people that,

they come in and they second guess everything

and they argue about the program.

They don't want to do it.

And they stay sick for a long time.

Sometimes they get better and sometimes they don't.

And kind of was just like, okay, they would say, do this.

I had like, okay, and I would just do it, you know,

go to me anyway.

Okay, you know, start to look for a sponsor.

Okay, and then I got a sponsor.

And at the time I had long hair and I went to this meeting

and this guy had long hair and a goatee

and he seemed really with it.

And I asked him and he was my sponsor

for like the next eight and a half years.

And we would like go to the beach,

play with his dog and read the big book.

We'd go get pizza and read the big book

and do all this stuff.

And, you know, through the process of working

through the stuff, started sort of rebuilding, you know,

the relationships in my life,

but also figuring out who I am and how I operate

and why I do the things that I do.

And I come from a fairly religious Jewish upbringing

and I was bar mitzvahed against my will

and which I think everybody is.

And, you know, I just, it never felt,

it just, you know, it never felt like anything to me.

And there isn't really much in that realm

of religion that does.

And so, you know, I have cultivated

this more sort of like Buddhist Star Wars

kind of deal for myself where like,

there's obviously something going on

because there are planets and stars and trees and water

and I'm not doing that.

And I don't really need to understand what it is.

And the steps and the program and things we do together

are more powerful than me.

So when I wake up in the morning and I do my stuff,

I'm turning my will of my life over to the care of Alcoholics Anonymous

and the people in the rooms that I trust, you know.

And if that's something that you're into, great.

And if you have a different spin on it, that's awesome too.

Like, whatever works for you,

that just happens to be what works for me.

You know, I don't really use the word God

unless I absolutely have to, I kind of avoid it.

For me, that's someone like a specific entity's name

that I'm not a fan of and so I don't say that.

Even here, like when we do prayers, I skip that word,

you know, just 'cause it makes me feel

the most comfortable and most connected, you know.

So there's that and, you know, then I did my four step

and I've done many of them over the years

and I always find them valuable.

You know, the way that I was taught was,

okay, so you make this list

and my sponsor had these worksheets.

'Cause it wasn't like, hey, you write a book

and a story about all these things.

Like you make a list, you know,

just like an inventory at the store, you know.

This is kind of what I was dreaming about

or thinking about earlier was the four step.

Like, you know, if I write mom,

there's gonna be like 20 different resentments.

It's not all the same.

I don't have one line, you know, I have each specific thing.

Just like when you go to the store and there's ketchup,

there's like different varieties, you know.

So it's like, you know, but I started this list

and what I learned through doing this work was

the way that I was taught with my sponsor was

you write the names and you write the thing.

So, oh, it's not really about the thing.

I mean, about the person.

It's more about like the situation that happened, right?

Than what it affects.

Okay, so it's not really about the thing that happened.

It's about what affects.

And then the fourth column, you know, my part.

And the way that he taught me was it's not my part

in the situation that happened, it's my part to resentment.

So because I have a resentment against this person,

what do I do about it?

You know, I talk shit about them.

I avoid them.

I rage at them.

I withdraw from them, whatever, you know.

And it could be resentment against myself

or other people.

And so, you know, that's one of the most important lessons

that I've learned is like taking a look

at when I encounter a situation

and I'm feeling crappy about something,

there's something difficult going on, backing up and okay,

so what's my part in this?

Why am I feeling a certain way?

What's my next best option, you know?

And then reaching out for support.

I really try to live my life through the steps

and the traditions as well.

Like I grew conscience.

If I'm facing some sort of heavy decision,

I usually know what the right answer is,

but I'll run it by the people that I care about

the most in my life.

My good friends, my wife, my sponsor.

And if I ask 10 people and eight of them say this,

but I want to do what the other two people say,

I go with eight, you know,

because I've learned that like,

if more people are saying something

and that's probably the right answer.

So, you know, my mom had been sick with cancer

my whole life.

We really worked through therapy

and repaired our relationship.

My parents were a huge part of my life

throughout my recovery.

Right before my fourth sober birthday,

she passed away from cancer

after a long, intense last six months of it.

And I was able to be present and be there for her.

And it was brutal, but it was also amazing

that I was able to get through that.

I had just been secretary of the meeting

and I was supposed to speak the night that she died.

It was Thursday.

And I stayed with my dad for a little while.

And I was like, I got to go to this meeting.

And I went because I really wanted to be around the people

that I had loved.

And I shared this meeting

and my girlfriend at the time sat on one side

and my good friend sat on the other side

and they both were holding my hands

and I cried and wept the whole meeting.

And I talked about my mom and I talked about sobriety.

And I don't say that 'cause that makes me tough or anything,

but I needed that.

It was just a shitty day.

And so that was the safest place that I knew.

Being home with dad was okay,

but I needed to be around those people.

And to me, that's an example

of putting my trust in the program

and being able to just show up and let people in.

For me, that's the most important thing in my life

is the fact that I'm sober

and my connection with other people.

I graduated high school somehow sober,

took some time off,

and then I realized that I wanted to go back to school

and I wanted to study music.

I had been playing bass for a couple of years

and that's what I wanted to study.

And so I went to Santa Monica College on a part-time basis

and I studied and I took classes

and then I eventually transferred

to a music school in Boston.

And when I had four years, I moved there

and I was there for a few years

and I took what I had learned here and there.

I went to a lot of meetings, you know.

I was a service.

I became an RA in my dorm.

You know, I was 22 when I got to Berkeley

and a little bit older than most of the people there.

Most people come here freshman

and I had some life experience.

And so I brought that there and, you know,

I had a great time and I learned a lot.

I play a lot of really fun music.

And then I came home and tried to make a career of it.

I did okay for a little while.

And, you know, I hit another sort of bottom.

You know, I think my story is also

that I hit different kinds of bottoms along the way.

You know, initially it was like the getting loaded thing.

You know, the next one was at nine.

On my ninth summer birthday,

the woman I had been living with for a few years

gave me a cake.

We went out to dinner and we got home.

She, we started to talk.

She said, "I'm leaving."

She broke up with me and she took off.

And that was brutal.

And so I called up some friends.

We hung out and I was devastated.

And that kind of got me back in gear,

like getting better physical shape

'cause I was pretty out of shape at that point

and take better care of myself emotionally

and jumped harder into service.

And that's another thing that I've encountered

is like when I'm really struggling with something,

if I jump into service,

whether it's at the meeting level or district or whatever,

that helps keep me on course.

You know, it really adds some meaning to my life as well.

So I did that then.

And then, you know, I've hit the, all these bottoms,

you know, a couple years after that, financial stuff.

All right, there's a program for that.

All right, let's do this.

You know, and so where things are now

is it's over for 31 years.

I've been married for coming up on 15 years.

My wife, who I went to junior high school with,

is also in the program.

She's also in recovery, which is awesome.

So we have this like common foundation together

and this common language in our house.

We go to, I go to a lot of Zoom meetings 'cause it's easy.

My oldest, who's gonna be 14 next month, is special needs.

He has a genetic disorder that is autism

and a bunch of other stuff.

It's like a cluster of things and he is really challenging.

And so since the pandemic,

we haven't really had any services in for him

'cause we were getting all these strangers in the house

and we didn't feel comfortable having people

with this raging disease going.

And so I've kind of settled into more of this lifestyle

of like, oh, it's Saturday.

I can go to a meeting in New Zealand on my couch.

It's awesome, you know.

I can do those things.

But I also try to make an effort to really stay in touch

with the people and do face-to-face time

with friends and be able to roll.

But you know, my life is pretty simple these days

as far as like the stuff that I do.

It's really hard right now.

My son is really, really struggling.

Then I go to work, I come home, I do chores.

We have a lot of animals, some have.

Two dogs, two cats, a lizard.

We have to get some birds apparently.

My wife just like shows up in the animals.

She texted me a few weeks ago and just said,

"Hey, how, on the scale of zero to 10,

how much would you murder me if the kids got birds?"

I was like, "11."

But I said, "Thank you for asking."

We were texting 'cause I was at work.

I was like, "Thanks for asking,

but I know you're gonna do it anyway."

And you know, like I need more responsibility in my life

and more living things to take care of.

And like I said earlier, like in the last few years,

I really had to take a hard look at my anger

because I worked through a lot of stuff as a youngster

and early in my recovery.

And then through being a parent,

a lot of that stuff has come back up

and I have not always been a resourceful, calm dad.

And I'm much bigger than my wife and my kids.

I can't see now, but I'm pretty heavily tattooed

and I look like this and my face,

when I just am still looks like I'm upset.

And so my experience with things

is very different than theirs.

And so I've had to learn to take a hard look at like,

okay, what's someone else's experience of you?

How is it different?

Why is it different?

And even though if I don't agree,

I need to see someone else's point of view

and make some changes.

So I've been doing a lot of work on that,

but that's the biggest challenge in my life right now.

And luckily I don't wanna get loaded over it.

I want it to change.

I'm still practicing a lot of acceptance

around the fact that my son may never be able to function

outside of living with us.

He may have to live with us the rest of his life.

He may never have a job and I love him and we'll do that.

But there's a part of me that's like looking forward

to like being home alone with no kids,

but wrestling with that.

And so I haven't always been the most patient, like I said,

and really having to practice a lot of tools

and gain more tools through different avenues.

And I'm a big fan of like,

I think that the 12 steps can do a lot for us,

but I also know that there are other things biologically

and chemically and other things

that the 12 steps just can't do.

And so, it talks about in the book,

like this is our gateway to getting you

whatever resources you need.

It talks about that.

So I think therapy and psychiatry,

whatever you need in order to be your best self

is when you should take advantage of it.

If you're confused about it or you're not sure,

talk to your sponsor, talk to other people.

I try to talk to people that have more experience

in those realms than I do.

You know, pretty knowledgeable about a lot of those things.

I love this light system, that's pretty awesome.

Yeah, sure, sorry.

So I think whatever is gonna get you to where you need,

you should do that.

But also like, you know, talk to people that you trust.

You know, like I'm not a doctor.

You know, I was certified counselor for a long time

and I would talk to clients,

but I would also let them know I am not a doctor.

So my job is to point you to the doctor, you know,

to talk to you about your options

and figure out like, what's the best thing for you,

but I can't do those things for you.

You know, it's the same thing here.

Yeah, I have a certain amount of experience with things

and I'll talk to you about what I've gone through

and maybe what I know some options are,

but I can't help you with your divorce paperwork.

I can't help you.

You know, there's lots of stuff that we do.

Like, I can't do that stuff for you.

I'll hold your hand and we can walk through it together.

But you know, but like kind of opened with this,

like the beauty is that there's all these different people

that have different skills and experiences

and we can all be there for each other.

And you know, regardless of where we come from, you know,

we can do these things and we can talk to each other

about it and you know, even if I've never been

to a meeting before, like this one,

I'm getting something out of it by listening to Bill.

You know, and so, you know, I've been lucky enough

to like be a touring musician and go to meetings

like in bump up Kansas where there was like three people

and it was awesome, you know, or like other places

where there's like these little hole in the wall

meeting places and we're like, oh, we're in Ohio.

What time is it?

What night is it?

Let's look at, okay, let's go, you know,

'cause I know it's a safe place, you know.

And so I'd also like to say, I think meetings are important

but they're not the program, the steps are the program.

And I think meeting, like I said, meetings are important

but it's really important to go to meetings

where you feel safe and you feel

like you're getting something.

I know like I'll go to meetings and I'll be like,

I don't like this meeting.

I don't like the vibe in here or whatever.

I don't go back and it's not malicious.

It's just, that's not the place for me, you know.

It's like a restaurant.

If I like don't like the food, I don't force myself

to go back to eat there all the time.

I just go somewhere else.

And so I really do that with meetings.

You know, I have a bunch of places

that I know I'm comfortable at and I go there.

And if I wanna branch out, talk to friends, say,

hey, where do you go to meetings?

You know, it's what day of the week is it?

Are you going tonight?

And I do that.

And so far it's worked, you know,

like my recovery has been sort of this recipe

of like throwing all this stuff in the pot

and for whatever reason, it's making brownies.

And if I take one thing out,

I'm not sure what that thing is gonna be

to make it not work.

And so I'm not willing to mess with that.

I keep doing all the stuff that I was taught

and hopefully I'll stick around.

Thanks again for having me.

I really appreciate it.

and that's nice to meet everybody, thanks.

- Thank you.

- Thanks, Bill.

Thanks, Danny.