Sean's Journey: Sponsorship, Service, and Spiritual Awakening

I'm kind of slow cuz I overdid it at the gym. So thinking I'm 20 years old, okay

My name is Sean and I am an alcoholic definitely and my sobriety dates April 9th 2015. Hey Monty, what's up? Um, first I want to

I want to share about

First I'm going to tell you what I do today

To stay here and what I do today and how bad it got what I have to do today

So I don't have to go back to what got me here. You know what I mean? Um, I sponsor guys

I have a sponsor who has a sponsor

I've

Did I say my sobriety date? Yeah, I've been through the steps quite a few times and

I'm kind of sensing I go to another program too. So I'll probably going through that program

I've done the angles and all the all the

Different points of view with AA steps. I'm like, well, maybe it's time for me to do those steps over there

But that's that that's that that program. I sponsor guys Thursday

I just took took a gentleman through the fifth step and it was amazing to see to see people when they come in and then

You see what they evolve into you just and you're just watching it from up just from here

You're just like wow. Wow, and the feeling you get

like when he finished his

His fifth step and I told about the part of the big book where you when you go home

Just you have to spend the rest of the night with with your higher power with your God

I believe that's page 74 talks about you know, knowing what you just did go home and be with yourself for Eagles

all right, so it's beautiful and that feeling that you get to know that

You were instrumental in this no money could buy that feeling. Um, I sponsor guys, you know

I have I have seven sponsors three are in the work for I hear crickets. So the percentages are about right, right?

They say I'm their sponsor, but that's about it. Um, I'm third generation a a my grandpa my dad and now me and I

I'm a service as much as I possibly can be

Service could be many things

Service can be for me not only in the rooms, but out there in the world

Step 12 having had past tense a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. We try to carry this message

Alcoholics and practices principles all our affairs all our affairs to me means out there to not just writing them on the steps on paper

but you learn to live them and when your feet meet the street, that's

You I can work the steps in the room and still be the biggest a-hole out there cussing people out and stuff

But when you stay when I've stayed I've learned staying around

And having ten years and then my first meeting was in 1992. Ah, I identified that I had a problem

But I didn't stay but I have a joke and this place has jokes

My first meeting in 1992 was at the improv and the joke was on me

for years until 2015 took that long I

Don't have any commitments right now

I need to get busy and get some because I've heard a couple meetings where you don't it's like wow

But we're working work will work get in the way and this like Sean you wouldn't have a job if you weren't sober

So, um about my sponsor says Sean you've been around a long enough. You'll get a commitment

You know what to do and he goes, how about this stay committed to your commitment to be committed to alcoholics anonymous?

He says that's a commitment in itself. He was overthinking things. I'm like, he says you'll get one. I'm like, oh

Just stay committed to this program that saved your life. Oh, you know what? It's the old-timers. I love it

I'm standing here because old-timers prayed like hell for me

My dad my grandpa and and even even in the meetings the old-timers when when they share, um, I'm a sponge

I soak it up and in the beginning they

Were tell me what I needed to hear when I didn't want to hear it

My first go-to used to be custom out half Spanish half

Half in English, but my mom left. Oh, yeah and all that and stuff, but I I can't today

I I just keep my fingers in my pockets. In fact, I don't even have my fingers out anymore. I've learned Sean

They're telling you because they love you and they're showing you some tough love you baby. Um, you bury them

I learned that from that come from them. I'm like, oh that hit deep when I first heard that

I'm not here to coddle you this thing is saves our lives and we can't baby people here because they end up in a casket

Um, oh, um, so that's what I do and then you know

especially especially being out there and I've learned from old-timers and stuff and and being of service out there in the world and

It gets me emotional sometimes where you I call it. Sometimes I'm like pinch me like pinch me moments to

To be standing here and then I often say, you know, I am today. I am proof

I am the proof and evidence that

Actually, no, I am the proof and evidence of the grace of God that saved me and I'm also living breathing proof that people can

Change a person can change people can change as a whole in these rooms and individually and we see it every day

That's in this room and it's it's on here we change and then I know we all have those moments where and I I get tears

They're tears of gratitude

I've just think of where I once was where I was there then and to see where I am here now

And I'm not really worried about over here cuz I know God's gonna be there with me

Anyway, he was there then my higher powers here now

It's gonna be there with me tomorrow because me and my higher power we have and I'll get into my story

But when I first got in here, I came in here with a lot of

Religion for God. Yeah, I know God. Yeah, Sean. I found out through these steps. Yeah, you knew God you knew of him

You didn't know him intimately and personally I had a relationship with him

I came in here with a lot of religion for God you introduced me

You can't you basically said come on inside do what we do do what you're told and taught and we're gonna introduce you to someone

And that someone's gonna introduce you to someone else you introduced me to my god and my own personal relationship

I found through the through the steps through the steps and God introduced me to me

I never knew the me that I was always meant to be but I I'm the one that that

Accumulated garbage clutter and debris set there by me using my my seven-step prayer

My sponsor have the third step right it to where it caters to you my seven-step prayer write it to where it caters to you

individually between you and your God because it's between you and I tell my sponsors - it's between between you and your God and

As unique as you are as a person from me, that's the same unique relationship

You're gonna have your higher power and no one can touch it and I can say that about my unique person that I am

Has a unique personal relationship with my higher power that no one can touch no one in my family my sponsor

But my best friend no one it's between me and God and it's like this and it's tight

I didn't have that coming in here and I learned that in these rooms and and things that had to happen. So let me backtrack

My name is Sean Connell O'Neill about as Irish as you can get right Sean Connell O'Neill. My dad was the big

xboxer

He was used to fight at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown. He was the big ruler a brought bruiser heavyweight boxer

I used to I talked about my dad because that's why I believe that's one of the reasons I'm standing here because it pops

Um and in the end before he passed away in 2015, I had four months

We were going to meetings together and it was beautiful

But my dad was a big surfer from he's like a big biker big old beard long hair tattoos surfer from Santa Monica

He moved to Anaheim and made a chola Chicana my mom and then had a bunch of crazy kids

I'm one of them there was eight of us and check this out

There was eight of us two alcoholics addicts my sister Michelle and me and I say the the Irish and my mom's at Chicano

So that makes me a leprechaun Oh, okay

So, um, but what happened with me personally was is my dad was in his disease

He had 35 years sober and he was clean as well when he passed away and especially in 2015. I had four months and

and

When he was in his disease, he almost he almost killed my mom

um, and this is what what affected me into my using and stuff and drinking and stuff was is

and he went to he went to jail for it and she left basically to save her life and

Basically took four kids one was adopted out and three kids went with her and then for me my twin brother

Who's who's a normie and my my two sisters were put in foster homes

but before that when my dad went to jail my mom left to basically to save her life because she had a metal plate in her

head from him beating her in his drunken rages and

We were given the impression that she abandoned us and wanted nothing to do with us

I found out later on from my mom's side of the family because they both were like my dad's side and my mom's side they

Talked she's made what crap on each other, but we found out I found out later

It was the opposite

My mom was the most loving caring kind beautiful woman that you could ever meet and and when she used to call me Miho

I would like this before she passed away two years ago

She'd say I love you Miho and I'm like that little kid again

Just that word just melts me and I'm getting goosebumps now

That's basically her probably telling me I can hear you Miho. I can hear you talking

Um, and so she left to save her life and my dad went to jail

We were put in first and this was in the city of Orange. It's called Albert sitting home

It was kind of like a little little orphanage for kids and it was like I felt like a like dog

Like I later on I felt that we felt like dogs dogs in a kennel in a dog pound here

We are in these little cubicles playing toys and these adults are going by. Oh, look at that one

Oh, what about that little kid over there? Oh, he's so cute. He's adorable and you're just that little kid

just looking at who's who are these people staring at us and pointing us feeling like a little dog in a pound because

That's when I started to have no trust in adults my dad

I thought my mom abandoned us and here we are these weird adults staring at us. So we go to foster homes

I was in my own. My brother was down the street. My two sisters were in Fountain Valley in the same home

I don't know what happened in there is all I know is what happened in mine and it was from age five to seven

I have a mark on my my

Eyebrow and I'll fast forward over here, but I have a mark on my eyebrow

I got need to share on this part mark on my eyebrow where one of the foster fathers

I was it we were in the foster homes from age five. I was age five to seven

My foster father would say hey Sean go to go peepee before you go to bed and then call me in here so I can see

You went cuz I don't want you going in the bed

Okay

One time I flushed it and he had been drinking and he comes in and he goes did you go peepee?

I said yes

he goes don't lie to me you and he cussed me out picked me up by my ankles and slammed my head into the toilet bowl and

There was just bloody and I passed out they take me out of that home

but me in another home where an older male but trapped me in a tool shed and

Sexually molest me and not let me leave until he finished and I kept that for years and years later

When I was in a rehab, I told my dad and he didn't know and he got really quiet

In fact, I kind of know what he was probably thinking had I not put those kids through that Sean never would have went

I don't know why other brothers and sisters went through it could be good

I know my two sisters had a good home and I don't know about my brothers

But I know what mine were I was bounced from home to home in those two years. It was for two years and and

I do believe this was hindsight. I do believe later on because my dad was old-school

Xboxer he believed in violence

He believed in effing people up he would come and hunt you down and he was gonna destroy you

Physically with his hands or with a bat or whatever. That's how he rolled and I believe later on I believe

God saved my dad cuz had my dad found out that his because he would do anything for his kids

He was very protective had my dad found out that those two guys did that to his son

He probably would have been serving two life terms for killing killing someone that did something to his kid because that's how he rolled

You don't come near my kids. I'm gonna hunt you down. That's how he was. He changed when he came into a

He a told my dad to man up handle your business and take care of what what you did

You did this and a him showed him get yourself together

So my dad got himself together was in the rooms

And this was in that this was in the 70s that he got he got custody of four of us and raised us

It was a crazy house because we would it was this big buffed out white dude with four little

Little Latino kids following him around all the time in the store and always driving him crazy

You guys are driving me crazy. We're running around causing trouble, but he was a good dad

He was a good Danny and he did what he knew because his house was was a mess up was a mess, too

And he did the best he could um, he was always working. So granted we grew up in the barrio

So down by Santana and orange and and and you you we learned to do what people do in the barrio

Survival his dad's not there

We ever cook for ourselves. We had to do all that stuff and and my grandma helped a little but

It was survival. So and and so my older brother, I mean my twin brother

He was gang banging he became that he was a cholo and my two sisters were cholas

They were out on the street doing all the crazy stuff and I was a timid little kid that just stayed home and I was scared

Scared of everybody and just stayed home and and but I knew something was different about me

So my brother went to prison for years. He was a normie, but he his addiction was stealing

Violence like my dad. Um, mine was violence like we don't get into that, too

And my sister got married and the other one she took off and went to the state of Washington

And I was the last kid in the house. Um, then I started, you know, I played sports

I also box I still do that's probably why I'm all rickety cuz I I go and hit the boxing gym and started

The equipment and stuff and I think I'm I can still I'm gonna be 60 years old in September

No, Sean, my head says go but my body says heck no. I mean right now. I'm like, oh my gosh

but anyway

they all left and my dad was

Was at home and I played sports and stuff and I remember backtrack real quick and I'll fast forward real fast

I remember I was about 13 and the kids were all still in the house

my dad was taking us to alatine and he was taking us to alatine and one time after a meeting he went to a

His meeting and he came and picked us up and he said Sean Sean. Come here young man

I thought I was in trouble because when he talked like that, I'm like, he was serious. He goes I've been watching you Sean

I watch how you roll. I saw I watch what you do your mannerisms your demeanor and stuff

He goes this is what he said. You're gonna end up in a a one day and I wasn't even drinking or none of that stuff

I'm getting goosebumps again

That's part of my dad and he's in the big meeting in the sky and here I am pops was right

I was 13 years old out of all the kids

One he said you're gonna end up in the rooms and here I am and so they all left and then

You know, I started partying on doing everything. I mean drinking everything

I mean I was oh it was I just wanted to numb out because I didn't want to feel um

I didn't want to feel how I was feeling different. I didn't want to feel

What is a therapist is subconsciously in me all that trauma that my dad put my mom through that I still don't remember

But a therapist said she's gonna work on getting that out for the childhood trauma because I blocked it out

I don't remember it but Sean it's there with my brothers and sisters

They remember and they refused to tell me because they know they know my my alcoholism and addiction. They're protecting me

They said if Sean found out he may go off beeping at home. We're not gonna tell them but little glimpses of it

They would grab my older brother would grab us and put us under the bed those old-fashioned beds in the room when my dad's

F'ing up my mom in the kitchen just beating her senselessly and they would hear that I said I said I don't remember any of that

But my twin brother my sister they go we remember my therapist says Sean you do but it's in there you blocked it

You blocked it. So, um, so I was drinking a lot of just everything and then hey, I was hanging out with

You know the stoner kids long hair just going through the phase and just just trying to numb out cuz I just didn't want to

Feel cuz I didn't like me. I hated me

I just it's and I would I was an introvert and it was very quiet and

Then I then I started hanging out with and I'll get into it

This was what probably my teens early 20s. I played sports and I hung out with a lot of my straight friends

Then I started cruising Garden Grove. There used to be a strip where it was all gay bars gay bookstores gay clubs

It was just and one time I walked by it was called the frat house

I was walked by it like four or five times and like let me just go in there. So I went in there and

in a way, I

Felt comfortable with the people that were in there, but I started drinking. No, I can't no. No, this is faggot

This is faggot stuff. No, I'm not going in there

but then I went in anyway and I started drinking more and then the drinking and then all the other substances came in even more and

More and more till one time my dad I was after work

My dad says what's with all those Mickey's big mouth 40s empty 40 bottles you got under your bed and there was tons of them

I would I would drink them before work. I'm home for lunch and drink them and at night come home and drink them

Um, cuz I was dealing with me and then do you guys remember? Does anybody remember the party lights?

We said the party lines

I was on those with guys and my dad worked long hours and I'm gonna fast forward real quick

And the reason why I share this is because the love that my dad showed me that he learned and Alcoholics Anonymous

It's the same love that he gave me and it's the same love

I've learned to extend to other people and I never thought it would be

but I bet all that was going on and I was on the party lines one night and I came down to our town how

they came I was in a good mood on a Saturday my dad jumps off jumps off the couch and he cussed me out and he

Goes who the F in hell is these faggoty little friends? You got dudes you got calling in the middle and I hey Sean

What's up, girl? Hey, I'm like, oh, oh my gosh

So my dad used to tell me boy when you're man enough who can go in the front yard

We're gonna have rounds. Let's see how tough you are

Thought this was today cuz when he said that who are these faggoty little guys you have calling in the middle of night waking me

Up, he's cussing me out and I just lost it

I pick a flower vase off the coffee table and he was in this dining room and I threw it at him

I said don't call my friends faggots, by the way

I'm a faggot and he stopped and he looked at me and he had these blue eyes that would pierce you and he said what?

Did you just say I'm like my head I was going I'm going to the front yard right now. Today's the day

I'm gonna die. He's gonna go beat me silly in the front yard. He says what did you just say?

I said dad, I think I'm gay and this is the love he learned enough. He he had good

What was it?

10 or 15 years. He became a softy. I'm a hardcore a softy

he says commercial and I was crying and I was

Weeping and I could still remember and he gets me emotional today to think what my dad he looked at me

He says come here and he held me and I was weeping in his arms and he says Sean and looked at me the face

He was Sean. I don't care that you're gay says you're my boy. I just want to know you're gonna be okay

He says you're good in my book and till the day he died. My dad was my number one

Support of who I am what I am and how I am in my corner

He's supported but he used to talk to my ex-boyfriends and he used to tell hey keep Sean in line because you know

He parties a lot and all my relationships. I was and I destroyed him because of my addiction

I was able with the nine steps to mend some of them some want nothing to do with me

I have a there's some of them that are 100% in my corner and they're and they're just fully

Supportive of me cuz I too would like she shared or he shared I to him do a diagnosed

So for years, I also self-medicated and when my ex-boyfriends found out like there's the puzzle piece to the puzzle my god Sean

We didn't know you were dealing with that. Oh my gosh, and they had some compassion and a love for that

like a wow and but I love my dad showed me that day is the love that I saw man of them all violence show the

Love that I never felt before never knew and he gave it to me and for years

I didn't accept me for who I was how I was and what because I left the house and moved out after that and then I

Moved to Hollywood and I used to fast. I wasn't all big but I was a lot thinner

I used to fashion model in late 80s early 90s and I was really good at it and was making really good money. Um

and

Then I had this well-known gay porn producer come up to me. Hey, you want to make some money you had this look

They're gonna love you. That's what I wanted to hear. They're gonna love you. Everyone's gonna like you everyone's gonna

I'm like, oh this false sense of attention all this and how was I gonna have them?

Love me when I didn't love me. Oh, I hated me but anything would would anything would would work for me

So I got into that industry and it blasted off

but so did the alcohol use and the other stuff and then I started to

Go to levels where ice I settled for a gutter standard of living. I wasn't raised that way true

We grew up in the body when we did what we had to do

But my dad was ex-military came from an Irish home where they're disciplinarians and we knew and we were polite little kids

In fact, they used to compliment my dad your kids are so polite. Yes, sir. No, man. May I leave the table?

Can I leave the table to go to the restroom close everything? Um, but I sunk so low

I thought so low of myself to a gutter standard of living and I was okay with it

But the fact that I was okay with it when I knew the morals my dad gave us

Depleted me even more to the point where I was on Santa Monica Boulevard hustling to get a bottle of booze and other things, too

and I was let you do anything to me and I'll do anything to you as long as you can

support my habit and I would woo you and screw you in more ways than one and I'd let you do the same thing as

Long as you would support my habit and I would do it with a smile

You know that saying betrayal with a kiss that was me. I was gonna I was gonna demoralize you I was gonna deplete you

I was gonna rob you of your dignity or self-respect. I was gonna steal from you

I was gonna lie to you demoralize you and smile about it. It's your fault cuz I hated me. I hated me

So then I'm gonna fast forward then I then I'm like, well, I can make more money. I started there's a label escorting

Oh, that's a fancy name making three to four to five hundred an hour

And the guys will travel you to where they're at and still letting them do anything to me and I'll do anything to them

As long as they supported me and kept me numb from me. Um, so the guy then

Skye's says okay. I'm paying for your apartment in Hollywood. You're coming to live with me in Malibu an old Malibu Road

He bought me a Jeep

Mercedes all this stuff and he was an alcoholic too and and he gave me everything the world says

Makes you happy all the trinkets and toys all this just dying inside

I was worse and worse and worse and then I remember twice he laid hands on me and

It's I may have been flashbacks from what my dad did to my mom or I don't know

But he went flying through the bedrooms of the house in Malibu and he went flying through the wall and his head stuck in the dry

Wall, um, I thought I said I custom out don't ever put your hands on me

The last person who hit me was my dad. So then we move up to San Francisco

We were living Pacific Heights really nice area

And I was managing somebody had these contractor schools up that I was managing those

He trained me in this management course and then he proceeds to

Hit me again, so I threw him down the stairs on top of the grand piano

His face was all cut up. And then the reason why I say that

about him putting his hands on me backtrack a little is growing up in the body with my brothers cholo friends because when I was

Younger, I kind of had like a little girl's voice

It took a while for my voice to get deep and they used to say I need a shot

Then a little little hoto little you know

The little faggot in Spanish and they would make fun of me and stuff and they bullied me and tell one time

My dad was all about handling a business

So I stood up and I started fighting and I'm not a tough guy, but I've learned it's still to this day

I don't take crap from people. No, I'm not gonna take that and and

And I'm still that way today because the bullying when I see people are bullied it hits me here because it's still cuz I believe

We have soul sores that haven't been healed

We have soul scabs that are healing and then we have we have soul scars that are healed

But they're still they still show right the bullying is still a scab and when the bullying happens to me

They rip it off and I just go from from white to red

It's happened in the rooms

People talking about me being gay at the Valley Club one time and I was gonna go full flight on a guy and old timers

Knew me. That's why I love our unity. They heard it

They knew it and they said go get Sean if I was headed to the door and I was gonna beat this dude and sky said

No, no, no come over here. We're going in the clubhouse. He talked me through it and another old timer

So I'm like, okay, I went through it. That's why I love why I'm sharing this

That's why I love what we do for each other in these rooms is there was an old timer named Scotty along by old biker

Vietnam vet so I went home and I'm like playing him

He had I'm a punk ass, you know what I mean for letting him say that I said no

No, no, I know what meetings it goes to I'm gonna find him

No, I'm an endless and all of a sudden something's told me Scotty's little Vietnam vet and he's

Operated in violence too. So we've had long talks and he's an old-timer. I come feel Scotty used to be a parole officer

so he likes me to call him that and I said Scotty I left a long message on his voice about what happened and I

Love the old timers. He calls me up. He's laughing at me. Okay, Sean. What the hell he starts cracking it up at me

So I I told him what happened and he goes, okay, let me explain something to you

Okay, five minutes and then I'll wind it down. He says let me this was a couple few months ago

He says let me explain this to you

He says I know who the guy is Scotty was in that meeting

He says that he goes and I was there and it was very important of inappropriate

That's what he does to demean people and he gets a thrill out of it. And I said, well, he needs his ass beat

Excuse my language, but he's he was yeah, he does someone needs to pop on them and then light him up and Scotty goes

Okay, Sean. All right, you can do that

you'll get some some some righteous anger taking care of it and you you will and

You'll get some joy out of it is some temporary relief because he he hit a wound that hasn't been healed and Scotty

He didn't even know that I was bullied when I was younger

But he knew he says he he tore scab off a wound that you haven't healed from yet

He knew he goes and and and he ripped it off and it got you and he says and you want to beat him silly

He goes, you know what?

Maybe he does need that because he shouldn't be doing that to people because he goes you could do that. You'll get a little a little

Relief out of that but let me give you another list

First of all, you'll lose respect and the love and and and how people like you at the Valley Club because they love you there

You'll be you'll be 86 from here. He won't be able to go there anymore

You will be arrested because I know this guy

He's the type of guy that won't say what he said and he'll just press charges. You'll go to jail

You'll lose your job court costs legal costs all that stuff and he goes now what list do you want to choose?

He gave me enough enough room to hang myself on like I'm getting goosebumps about him like oh I said Scotty and he goes

Okay

Why because someone did the same thing for him because he went to because I still have I have a lot of the rage and anger

And stuff like my dad had cuz remember that old song my boy was just like me cats in the cradle

That was me me and my dad, but that's what we do in these rooms. And I love it is is is is

we talk people through things and stuff and I have one sponsors call up and and

what this program their their pinch me moments and and the pinch me moments are

Like when I was in my disease the things I prayed for once you get him in

Sobriety not not even knowing and then you realize why I want to trade for this and then a lot of things once I get

It I'm complaining about it. God's like Sean. Where's your gratitude?

I'm like, so I do a gratitude list every morning and sometimes I keep it so simple

Your your lungs are breathing your heart is beating your blood's flowing. Your mind is thinking it may be crazy

But it's still thinking you didn't blow your brains out because I almost went that that way too

I ended up in all of you sober

I was losing it and and it was it was the program that took me up there and made me a guy in the sober

Guys in the program and and the blessings that this program has given me is is and what you guys have told and taught me

I told you about my dad after his funeral. Where did I go?

I went to a meeting and shared about it because you told me to two years ago when my mom died up in Aberdeen

Washington because she was up there. Um, I was able to do her eulogy my brothers and sisters

They didn't want used to want me. I was the crazy black sheep. I say black sheep with pink stripes

I'm gay. I used to tell them next time you're crazy. I'm the one they didn't want around

he's the crazy cycle running around the country doing crazy cuz I went from Orange County to Hollywood to

San Francisco to New York to South Florida to Atlanta and then in Montgomery, Alabama on a nine-month blackout

So and here I'm back home

but my brothers and sisters and my mom's funeral got together and said we want Sean to do the eulogy that's the program and and

We're gonna go after her funeral

I went to an AA meeting at the Aberdeen Alana Club and shared about it

Why because you told me to what we've been told and taught in here a little bit a little bit after

COVID

It still pinches me. I have a little ministry on social media

I got ordained as it as a as a minister and pastor a gay ministry pastor. I tell people yes

There are gay pastors. Okay, I tell people and they're like, wow a shine and people come up to me. Sometimes that means hey reverend

They call me reverend. I'm like, I'm uncomfortable with it. I said, no. No, this is none of my doing

That's who did it all and that's why I'm standing here is is my god hundred percent gets the credit and that's it

My name is Sean. Thanks