Chrissy's Journey: From Early Motherhood to 31 Years Sober

I'm going to try to walk on.

Thank you.

Wow.

I was just tripping on how did you get both and I finally figured it out.

So I'm Chrissy Brandelan.

I'm an alcoholic.

Grateful to be clean and sober tonight.

Grateful to be here.

Grateful you guys are here because I can't do it alone and I say that any time that I

open my mouth in Alcoholics Anonymous with my name because I need to remember, I cannot

do it alone.

I have, um, thank you Lisa for volunteering to ride down here with me.

Um, yeah, I've not been told I'm not the best driver in the world.

So thank you for coming and um, I have a sobriety date.

It's August 16th, 1993.

It's a date we just picked because I made it to Santa Barbara around the first part

of August and we weren't really sure when I got sober and when.

So we just picked that cause that was safe.

Um, but then I wanted to change it cause my best friend OD'd on that day about 10 years

ago and my sponsor wouldn't let me.

Um, and I have a sponsor who has a sponsor and I work the steps as they're laid out in

the big book.

And now I'm working the steps as they're laid out in the 12 and 12 which at 31 years sober

I've never done.

Um, because like I think a few years ago, I don't have any memory of being a kid.

Like I could remember on my fingers things that happened as a kid and I always thought,

well, you're not supposed to remember it if God wants you to, he'll have you remember

it.

Well, I guess all of a sudden God wants me to and I don't care to.

And so I have the sponsor who I'm working through the steps in the 12 and 12 with on

all this random stuff that comes up from childhood.

And thank you so much for leading us up.

The first thing it's like, well, is your phone on?

Your baby's like so close to being here.

And I remember it like my grandkids are the light of my life.

This poor woman has had to listen for well over an hour and a half, two hours about what

wonderful, beautiful, fantastic grandkids I have.

I have four of them and I'm very blessed.

And after you hear my story, it'll blow your mind that I'm allowed to play with them.

And I am a real alcoholic.

I was looking in the, when we went to eat, looking in the bathroom and we hadn't had

any sun in Santa Barbara for like, it felt like months.

I know it was probably just weeks.

Like the sun, I go to work at four 30 and the sun would come out at four and it would

be windshield wiper wet before that.

And so the sun came out Friday and it was on.

I mean like Chris, come on, you're going to get some more sunny days further down the

road.

Um, but I am just so blessed with these grandkids of mine.

I know I'm jumping around, but I've got a weird long convoluted story.

I um, I fell in love with the man of my dreams when I was 13.

He didn't hit very hard in the beginning.

He had more money than I could ever spend and more drugs and alcohol than I could ever

consume.

And, and it was going on.

It was going on.

And um, through that time with him when I was 18, my pants got really, really, really

tight and my son Bob was born.

And that's how much I just drank and used and drank and used and did one to support

the other one just so I could keep on going.

And that's how far out there I was that I didn't even realize I was pregnant until I

was like seven months along.

And by the grace of God, he's okay.

Um, which physically, mentally that he's okay.

And then, you know, about a year later it happened again.

And that's my son Jim.

And um, and I stayed with this guy and I got busted when I was 20.

My kids were like one and a couple months old and, and I straightened out.

I realized that, you know, that that's what was making my life horrible and, and I divorced

this man and um, got a Doberman pincher for the front yard so that anybody that I shouldn't

be hanging with wasn't going to come around.

And you know, like you said, you're, you're applying yourself to the accelerated school.

I truly believe that us alcoholics, everyone in this room are the smartest people on the

planet.

When you get us focused long enough, we can complete anything.

We're like, I would love to have IQ tests in alcoholics mom cause I think we're off

the charts compared to normal people.

And um, and so just, you know, my, by me not doing that, I got, I got the outside stuff

together.

I got a job with Alcoa.

I was in charge of three States.

I was softball or baseball player agent and a soccer referee and all PTA, all those things.

I was like the best mom in the world from the outside.

But if you came in my house, I was a dry drunk and you didn't put your backpack away.

You got picked up and slammed against the wall for not putting your backpack away.

Um, and, and for 10 years that that happened with no program of any manner, shape or form,

I didn't know what existed.

And so of course I ended up getting, getting loaded again.

My family didn't think I was alcoholic.

Um, and you know, I went from having it all to living on the streets and I think probably

less than a year.

My boss asked me to sign a letter of resignation.

I didn't want to resign, but she gave me a year's compensatory pay and the year's insurance.

So I resigned and I went from, um, from doing all that to my mom said, if I ever contacted

my kids again, she'd take them away from legally.

I went to, I went to jail a lot.

You said, you know, Oh, I went every time I turned around, I went to jail again.

And because I was still officially employed, they kept letting me out.

I got arrested 11 times in 41 days, um, just by ROR, ROR, ROR, six drunk drivings, but

I wasn't alcoholic you see.

And um, and that last one was a drunk driving with a grand theft auto.

And so they kept me for a while.

And while I was in jail, my mom sent my kids to Minnesota to stay with my husband and I

lost my house.

My mom was sweet enough to put most of our stuff in storage.

My kids came home from Minnesota.

Their home was gone, their mom was gone and all this stuff was gone.

And uh, and uh, I got out of jail and I, you know, I tried, I, any of you who had a mom

when they were drinking and using knows that you can convince them anything.

And, and I tried and I would do this thing where I do good for a couple of days and then

I'd go to work and then they wouldn't see me for three days or all week maybe.

And one day I came home and I put my key in the lock and it didn't work.

My mom said, I'm keeping the kids, here's a bag of stuff if you want it and if you don't,

don't contact us again.

As far as we're concerned, you're dead.

I took my little red gym bag and walked away, started sleeping on the ice.

At that point I was such a mess and so skinny that even the lowest of lowest of lowest companions

wouldn't let me hang out in their house.

You know, could I just brush my teeth and wash my underwear?

No.

Oh, go to a bathroom somewhere.

And so this fellow said, you want to move to Detroit?

That burned my parents in a long, long, long, long time and they said we could stay with

them.

Sounds like a good idea to me because I was in Sacramento at that time and Sacramento

winters are cold.

I mean, they're not cold like Detroit winters, but they're cold and, and I don't like rodents

and I found that the best place to sleep, it is not in cardboard boxes, but to scooch

down underneath the ivy, the way that ivy grows in a, in a blanket and scooch down under

the ivy and he stayed pretty relatively warm, but there's rodents in there.

And so I got on a bus and I went to Detroit and I cleaned up my act again, you know, and

they would have, um, martinis.

And I thought that's the silliest little thing anybody invented, you know, most of you probably

have had martini or seen one, a glass this big around, like this deep, what's the point?

We'd have a martini before dinner and then we'd have, um, liqueur in, in these like glasses

that tall, this big around, like real fancy.

They were rich 22nd floor of a 40 story building.

And I just, I didn't get the point.

And I didn't know then I'd never been to alcohol.

So I didn't realize or have any clue that when they gave me this, um, martini or this

little liqueur thing after dinner that they had woken up the beast and I'd be crazy all

night long.

And so then I finally realized that if I went down, it was a great big building and it had

like, it was like our parking lot.

We were just in, it had restaurants and party stores and everything on the first floor.

I'd go down and I'd get my, um, little pints of vodka and I put them in my socks and I'd

walk real quiet to my room and I'd hick down the pipe before dinner.

And then that would be plenty to have that little martini.

And one night, you know, Terry said something he probably shouldn't have.

And I picked up this big marble statue and I swung it at him and he ducked and it hit

the plate glass window and his parents suggested we move and I might want to try alcoholics

and others.

So we moved.

I cleaned up again.

I stopped drinking before I stopped again and uh, and that lasted for like about six

months.

I got a great job.

I'm such a workaholic.

I have to like really 30 years later, really reign that in.

Um, no, but I'm getting old, falling apart.

It's easier.

Um, and I got a job at tiger stadium, head of the security for the visiting team.

Life was good.

And then the next thing you know, I'm getting loaded one more time.

And Terry and I got in a fight and see the thing about me and liquor is I'm the, I think

I'm the real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde because like I try to run people over with cars when

I drink.

I get drunk driving when I drink.

Uh, the final icing on the cake there, Terry was the guy I moved back with was I was in

the bathroom and he wanted in and I wasn't going to let him in and we were fighting through

the bathroom door.

And so he kicked in like above the door handle and below the door handle.

Like it was just like that one.

It didn't have the three latches and the top and the bottom went over and I came up with

the butcher knife to get him and he cold cocked me, a uppercut to my nose, black guys immediately

knocked me out, tied, tied me up with a telephone cord and called my mom and said, I'm sending

her away.

She tried to kill me tonight and thank God he was a little teeny guy.

Thank God he was fast cause I would not, I don't want to kill anybody really.

Um, it's the liquor that makes me think I need to kill people.

Um, and I, my mom said, no, I'm not taking her.

I remember an old family friend, Tim Whitcomb, he used to sit out in our backyard.

We had like that blow up pool or the one and a half foot pool for the kids.

Sacramento.

It was hot.

I was just saying I liked the heating, playing sprinklers, do the slip and slide, do all

that stuff.

And he used to sit by the pool and drink this big 32 ounce plastic tumbler of whiskey and

they were cannery.

So perfect.

Six months on, six months off, they all shot dope and drink whiskey.

All the people that hang out together and they were like a lot older than me.

They were my brothers and sisters friends and um, and he had said, come to Santa Barbara.

The sun shines all the time, but he knows how much I like the sun.

And so I called him and he said, yes, of course you're welcome with wife and I have a spare

room.

You can sleep there.

Welcome to come on out.

Because I was about to be homeless in Detroit.

Um, and I, that, that sounded scary to me and it's cold.

I made it one winter and it is, it is like so cold.

And especially from California, we don't know what a Coke is.

Like my mother-in-law would say, go get your Coke and she said, that's a jacket, that's

not a Coke or your gloves.

Yeah.

And we don't know what winter wear is.

And um, and so it took Terry and I made a, took me about 10 days until I got to California.

I got one of those passes for, um, 149 anywhere in the United States.

So you could get off the bus and get back on and get off the bus and get back on.

And I came to so many places.

I'm one of those people that comes to places with people who I don't know who they are

or what I've done.

Um, and I came to, in the back of the bus, I came to on these stone stairs in Chicago,

big stone stairs.

Someday I'll go to Chicago and see if I could find them.

Cause it was weird.

Uh, I came to in like this little bathroom in Wyoming that said, um, Greyhound stops

here, you know, on a little cardboard deal.

And then I came to, oh, I forgot to tell you, I got on the bus with like one of those big

camping gallon Coleman thermoses with the little button to dispense.

And I was drinking vodka and cranberry by then because my urine had turned to that color

of Coca-Cola or coffee.

So I thought I needed the medicinal things of the cranberry.

And so I got on the bus with that and so I would pass out and come to them, pass out

and come to you.

And I came to an Oxnard and I was a Sacramento and then I moved to Detroit and I was a Detroiter.

And all I could think of is I do not want to be an Oxnardian.

I just don't want to be an Oxnardian.

And my vodka was dry and I don't know what I do with my money when I drink, but it just

dissipates to the air like, yeah, I don't know if I lose it or spend it or give it away.

People steal it.

And some nice person bought me some sour cream and onion Doritos and put me on the bus to

Santa Barbara.

And I got there and most, I don't know how many of you have been to Santa Barbara, but

it was a little building on the corner, like little building on the corner.

And across the street was the Carrillo Hotel, which was sort of like for the veterans and

the homeless people and the low income and that sort of stuff.

And I got off that bus and I just thought, what have I gotten myself into?

You know, this little podunk town, I'm not going to last a day without going to jail.

And Tim went there and I just didn't know what I was going to do.

Tim often says, I was not a vision for you because when I'm drinking and using, I don't

have time for washing and brushing and that sort of thing.

So I hadn't taken any hygienic care of myself for the 10 days that I was gone.

So I was, you know, I smelled high heaven and then I see this guy and he's got a shaved

head like a dude like you.

And he's got this shirt on that is as white as my sweater.

And he's like, Christie, is that you?

The Tim I know has long hair, enough lunch in his beard for us both to share.

You know, not many of you are old enough to remember the pride if your jeans stood in

the corner alone because they were so greasy.

That's the Tim I knew.

And then here's this man, his shirt was so white.

And he said, welcome.

I'm glad you're here.

And he gave me a hug.

He took me into his home, had me take a shower and put on some clean clothes, took me to

my first meeting of Alcoholics and Nuts where you guys said, welcome.

I'm glad you're here.

You never have a drink again if you don't want to and even when you want to, you don't

have to.

Amazing.

Took me home, told me to go to bed, don't get in any trouble tomorrow while they're

at work.

They'll see me tomorrow night.

They gave me a key to their house.

When back then, I'm not very good at like hitting the street and selling myself.

So I just, I can't pull it off.

I steal people's identities.

And back then it was really easy without the internet.

And I thought, you fools, you know, I'm going to rob you blind while you're at work.

But I didn't.

I went and laid out by their pool and I passed out and I started detoxing and they picked

me up, told me to take a shower, took me to my meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where like

all at different place, different people.

Welcome.

We're glad you're here.

That handshake that just, don't ever have to drink again.

And I just thought to myself, I am a scandalous biot.

You don't want me in your life.

I steal.

I lie.

I cheat.

You don't want me in your life.

Come on, let us love you until we could love yourself.

And every night, every day I passed out and detoxed.

I was sick.

And, and every night they took me to a meeting, took me to dinner, different meetings, different.

And then one night, and I felt bad because I know it's a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous,

but when I got sober, I wasn't an alcoholic.

I was a dope fiend.

And it took me about a year and a half to catch alcoholism.

And thank God I did because there's a simple, quite easy cure for alcoholism.

And so I started feeling guilty because I knew in my heart of hearts, I was not alcoholic,

but y'all were so nice to me.

And so Tim told me, just keep on lying.

They don't care if you lie about being alcoholics, just tell them the art.

And so I just kept telling you all I was and I just kept on coming.

And then we went to this meeting on a Tuesday night and my memories zip, but I remember

it being on Tuesday night and they had real coffee cups, um, ceramic ones.

And after the meeting, this lady said, could you please help me be my coffee cup rencer?

And when I got sober, I, I sorry about the drugs, but they're a big part of my story.

You know, I was smoking crack with heroin and drinking vodka all day long.

So when you took all that away, my seizures, tremens or something like that and make these

noises and my body parts would go.

And she asked me to be her coffee cup rencer.

And I was so afraid and I like thought I was going to die.

It felt like hours.

We were rinsing thousands of coffee cups and we got through it and I didn't break any of

them.

So excited that we had gotten through them all and we hadn't broken a single solitary

cup and she thanked me profusely and I was ready to run and she said, wait, wait, hon,

could you come back next Tuesday and be my coffee cup rencer again?

And I like panicked.

And I said just a second and I ran out and I'm like, Kim, she wants me to come back again

next week.

I don't have a car and I don't know where I'm going to leave it.

And he said, get your ass in there and tell her you'd be honored, which when you called

to ask me to speak, I said, I'd be honored because that's what I was talking about.

And I went back in and I was her coffee cup rencer again the next Tuesday.

And I realized after I got sober for a while that I probably really was her very best coffee

cup rencer ever because chances are it was a wash, rinse, dry and put away commitment

that it wasn't cut out into four parts.

But she was so kind and she knew I wasn't capable of anything other than just a little

part of her.

I couldn't have been a washer and getting the lipstick off and stuff.

There's no way I could have gotten that done, but I could rinse.

And I became a part of alcoholics anonymous being their coffee cup rencer.

So what you said about get a commitment at every meeting you go to, clean those ashtrays,

do your thing.

And, um, you know, I didn't ever try to stop drinking.

I didn't ever want to wait.

I did all my slipping long before I found the rooms.

And I'm so grateful that I just accidentally got so that Tim never told me he had 10 years,

never told me he didn't shoot dope and drink whiskey no more.

So I wouldn't have come.

My life was perfect.

My family had disowned me.

There was nobody in my way.

Oh, mom, when are you coming home?

You know, I was such a bad mother and I never would have got sober.

And I got sober and, um, my son, Jim, who's the one that lives in Santa Barbara.

He, when he was 12, he declared me dead.

He declared me dead long before my mom did.

He got on his little red stingray with his golf clubs on his back, pedaled away and said,

see ya, wouldn't want to be ya and moved in with his dad.

And when people asked him, why do you live here and not in sunny California, he'd say

my mom died.

And that's just how it was for years until his dad really did die and he had nowhere

to go.

He was on the streets of Minnesota and, uh, and he came out here and he hated me.

He despised me rightfully so.

He called me every word in the book, the C word, the B word.

It wasn't Chrissy.

Um, he just despised me and he got in this accident where he shattered his knee and had

to have this big old surgery and he had to learn to trust me just a little bit.

And you guys, I'm like four years sober working, doing like being a straight mom, cooking dinner

and stuff.

And he still got his stuff in a safe in his bedroom bolted to the floor because he does

not trust me.

And, um, and we just co-existed and he was a mean, right?

And like I say, right?

Please.

So mean, horrible child.

Uh, now he's my boss.

He's been my boss for the last 13 years.

He's a wonderful man, a product of Alcoholics Anonymous because he uses all our little things

on us.

Like, Oh, that's bothering you.

I didn't realize that happened in your square.

It's like, Oh, it didn't.

But, um, yeah, he uses all the little slogans cause he's been in here since he was 16 and

he's 47 now.

And so that little boy, you know, like I said, we co-existed, I fed him and put a roof over

his head.

He hated me and I didn't much care for him.

And when he was 20, 22, I think 20 or 22, he was a foreman on a construction job and

a chainsaw snapped back, hit a knot, snapped back.

The thing that's supposed to shut it off was broke and it hit him in the face and that

like cut through like that.

And I got that call and my mother wants to get, there's been an accident.

So I went to the hospital and there's my little boy, his whole head bandaged up.

He never lost consciousness.

Um, and, and they're wheeling him off to surgery and he said, no, you can't take me to surgery.

And they're like, yeah, we have to chainsaw cut through your face.

And he said, no, I will jump off this gurney if you don't stop.

And I told the lady, I said, he will, you know, he's a little, not the nicest kid in

the world.

Um, you tell me I can't cuss, but I, yeah, he just wasn't a nice boy.

And she said, honey, you have to go to surgery the longer, the longer we leave it, the harder

it'll be.

And he said, no, you have to wait until my mom's AAs get here, which is why I tell you

my last name.

And she said, what?

And he said, I just got my mom back and I don't want her to get loaded over this.

So no, you can't take me to surgery till my mom's AAs get here.

And you know, new house three was just blocks down the road and they heard a brandyland was

in the hospital because somebody in our program bothered going to school and becoming a nurse

and said, we just admitted a brandyland.

And I mean, how many brandylands are there in the nation?

Those new house people surrounded me.

And then the lady said, the scrub nurse, Chris said, I've got 20 years.

Don't worry.

We'll take care of your mom.

And they took him into surgery, you know?

Um, and it was, that was the turning point for us.

I mean, yeah, it was horrible.

It was, I remember the doctor, like he'd been in there about eight hours and the doctor

came out and he said, do you have a strong stomach?

And I said, yeah.

And he said, okay, well come on in here to this room and mask and stuff.

And he had like this silver tray of parts leftover, you know, chainsaws, grab and rip.

And he had little bone pieces and sinuses and stuff on a tray.

And he said, I haven't been able to figure out where all these pieces go.

Do you want to stop now?

Cause he's been under for a long, long time or do you want me to keep on trying it?

And I said, you know, if it was your little brother, cause he was a young doctor, but

was your little brother.

What would you do?

And he said, I'd stop.

So I'm up.

You know, the recovery from that was another two years and I got to prove myself as a sober

member of alcoholics.

I got to prove myself by going to work, coming home at break, fixing him lunch, emptying

his little pee pee jar, fixing him dinner.

I almost starved the boy to death though, because like one pork chop takes up a whole

dinner plate if you grind it up.

And I didn't realize that, you know, he's a five pork chop eater and I'm giving him

one pork chop.

And I ground up his food for him and it was the beginning of our relationship again.

And my son Bob came back to me and like I said, I've got these grandkids today that

Oh, go for the moon.

I would just love to be a full time grandma, but I am too financially insecure to quit

my job at this point in my life.

And I've got these grandkids that they trust me with, you know, that my boy, he, he, my

boy in Sacramento, he's always been like, how does this, he got in an accident a couple

of years later where he went off a motorcycle.

He went off a cliff at 78 miles an hour and he got some brain damage and a broken back

and was paralyzed on one side.

He got messed up pretty good.

And my son was lying to me and saying, well, he just broke his arm or something, but you

know him, he's mama's boy, a pussy.

He needs his mommy for a broken arm.

And um, and he is, I mean, my young son is rough and tumble and tough and has a pain

threshold out of the world.

And my oldest son is much more emotional and sensitive person, shall we say to put it nicely.

And he called me the other day and he, at 48 years old, he needed his mommy.

I'm so sorry for the reason he needed his mommy.

His wife had had a biopsy from her breast cause she might have cancer and he wanted

to go in with her.

And poor Bob was just at his wits and I hope he never hears this passed out on the floor.

So he went to be there for his wife during a horrible procedure and he passed out.

And he was sad and mad and like I probably every feeling that below paper you get in

recovery home says, and he called his mommy.

He told me it'll be okay when I do that.

I'm fine as long as I'm holding the bloody face together.

But the second somebody else is there to take over, I hit the floor.

And we know he does it too.

He passed out at the birth of his kids.

Um, there's just some of us that we think we're all tough and we aren't.

But the fact that he called me because he needed the love and support just knocked my

socks off.

And you know, just, just stuff.

My son Jim's in my life, the one that declared me dead.

And like I said, he's been my boss for, I don't know, around, I think around 13 years

now.

And he says, you know, take it easy.

You're 67 years old.

You've given a, I've worked at this company for 30 years.

He said, you've given 120, 130% your entire career.

Shave back and give 90% and you're already doing more than most of your coworkers.

You know, you don't have to give 120% anymore.

You can, you can chill out without totally retiring.

And the other day I think Friday it was, I just got a new bike and I was all excited

about my new bike.

Oh, there's a learning curve to change from a bike you've been riding for 21 years to

a new bike.

Um, and the kids said, come on, drive out to campus point out at UCSB, watch a surf.

So I get my bike out there and I'd forgotten my lock and you know, my old bike I could

set at the bottom of the stairs if somebody steals it, they must really need it.

Um, but now I got this new bike, so I can't, it's like, um, and I'm watching my granddaughter

surf and I'm watching my 47 year old son surf and then they notice I'm there and they come

out of the water and they're like doing their little happy dance and then they go back and

finish surfing just so I know for sure which sports they were.

And um, they're just, they're just a blessing in my life, uh, such a blessing in my life.

And they asked me to come over for mother's day tomorrow.

You know, that wasn't something I remember one particular mother's day before I lost

the house when my pager was completely full because poor Bob had paged me all day long

cause he had a mother's day celebration all set up and I never made it home and that kind

of stuff doesn't happen today.

I got, when I said I was fabulous, I am fabulous.

My body does not coincide with what I'd like it to do because I went to this orthopedic

surgeon when I was 42 and I took my x-rays and I had, back then I had chronic degenerative

disc disorder and scoliosis and all these things and he held it up to the window and

he's like, well baby, that's a perfectly normal spine of a 69 year old woman.

I'm like, dad, I'm 42 and he's like, yeah, you've been rode hard and put away wet too

many times.

And so I do have a lot of aches and pains and arthritis because you know, I, um, my

mom always said move forward in high gear and forget to engage my brain.

And I don't want to, I'd want to blame the Goleta road and work department, but on the

way home from that beach ride, I just splayed out in the middle of Hollister and Kellogg

just wrecked on my brand new bike and some people came and um, and picked me up and one

lady picked me up and another man picked my bike up and got me over to the curb and they

were all kind and she's like, I'm going to call to take you to the hospital cause you're

bleeding bad.

And I'm like, no, that's not that bad.

I can make a home.

Um, but you know, oops, it was a boo boo.

Nothing really hurts.

My elbows a little sore, but nothing really hurts bad.

And it was just scrapes when you get old, you bleed a lot.

Um, and it is, it's like every little wound is like a head wound that just, um, but I'm

going to get back on my bike tomorrow and it's not going to stop me.

It's not going to stop me from teaching my kids to water ski.

It's not going to stop me to teach my grandkids how to do a wakeboard, um, that I'm just going

to keep on going because I have this life beyond my wildest dreams and um, yeah, I don't

know.

This is just so fancy.

Um, one more thing and then I'll shut up.

It is such an honor and a privilege to be asked to speak.

We were looking for this space and if you haven't ever been here, even with great instructions

sent by Nate, it was really hard to find.

And so we're driving and driving and we finally spotted, I said, ask those guys on the bicycle.

She goes, no, I'm not asking.

I'm like, no, no, I'm not asking.

We're looking, looking, looking.

We finally found it.

And I said, it's deja vu because I have to say I've done things alcoholics a lot and

looks that are so embarrassing that you would think it would make me not ever say I'd be

honored again.

I was asked to speak at the Pacific group and because this was supposed to be like mostly,

you know who that place is.

It's a really big meeting with a really long hallway down the middle walkway.

And it was way before cell phones and any of this.

It was, I think I had like nine years sober and so we went with the map list on the paper

and we found the meeting hall.

Cool.

Good.

That's all great.

Sean wanted coffee and I wanted a snack.

So we went, we were like two hours early.

We went to get it, couldn't find our way back.

I have no sense of direction.

We're like in the car and like what ways west?

She's like, we both scuba dive and so no sense of direction.

I don't know what I said.

I have no clue.

Here, let me start pushing buttons in this new, I just got a new car, new fancy car that

I've got.

And then I'm making the, all the, everything in the car do things.

Not nice.

And because I know there's a little thing that says the directions in that car, I just

didn't know how to find it.

And so we finally get our bearings and find this place and go.

They were reading chapter three when I got to that meeting finally.

And so I came walking down that big, long aisle and of course I had to have hard shoes

on that day while they're reading chapter three and I'm the main speaker.

I don't know if or what I said that night, I was so embarrassed, but because I know God

needs me to be a part of alcoholics anonymous.

So maybe what I asked him before I came up here tonight, God, could you help me say one

thing that might help one person in this room tonight?

And I know he says, sure.

Then one more thing and I'll shut up.

I told my sponsor that it's hybrid and at our meeting, it's not our hybrids, not fancy

like this.

And so the people are this big.

And I said, I'm really uncomfortable with it being hybrid.

Like a bunch of strangers will be there and I don't even know.

And then I get here and it's all this, I'm like, how do they have this one going and

that one going and it's all nice and fancy and just, you guys have made me feel as comfortable

as could be.

And for that, I'm truly grateful.

And I do, I got a life beyond my wildest dreams and it's fabulous.

So if you're new here or if you're old and haven't worked the steps of alcoholics anonymous

as they're laid out in the big book, I highly recommend you do because it just cleans everything

up and, and it'll do for you what it's done for me because it promises it in the print

in the black and white part promises it will rocket you into the fourth dimension.

And that's been my experience.

So thank you guys.