David's 30‑Year Sobriety Journey: Time, Sponsors, and Dual Addictions

If you talk, they really need to see the top of my head for you.

Hey, I'm David.

I'm an alcoholic.

Thank you, Susan.

That was a wonderful talk.

I got sober in February of '95, so you're a newbie.

No, it's weird.

A friend of mine, I got sober in the Pacific group.

They had classes.

In fact, my class of '95 is going to have a banquet this September.

And a friend of mine, Dina Herrera, he passed away, and he had 40 days more than me.

And 20 years later, he still had 40 days more than me.

It's just the way that works.

But I've been sober for 30 years, and time is incredibly important, but it's not a tool.

There's no transition table in the back of the book.

You should be here by then.

And I've gotten in trouble thinking that.

But there's certain things that just heal.

It takes time.

There's no way around that.

Like, you know, people ask, "When is my family going to stop bringing up my drinking stories?"

You got to give them time.

There's nothing else you can do about that.

But the important part is I haven't had a serious depression in over 20 years.

I went through some legal stuff.

My brother passed away.

And I haven't had an anxiety attack in almost 10 years.

And I haven't had a suicidal depression since the summer of 2001.

I was thinking of killing myself, seriously.

I was six years sober.

That would scare me.

So I haven't thought of killing myself in, what, 24 years?

And most importantly, I haven't thought of killing any of you since Thursday.

Maybe I should still go to business.

But I'll tell my story.

I love talking about the steps and recovery.

But the best I can tell you is get a sponsor and whatever your sponsor says, he's right.

In '99, we read the same book, so 99% of it's going to be the same.

But if he tells you to do it four steps one way, and I tell you to do it a different way,

you really can't go to your sponsor and say, "You know, some speaker I never heard about

on Saturday night was tall and balding, and he said do it this way, because he's not single."

So the way I drank, I drank so I could be with people.

I knew that before I ever made it to an AA meeting.

Can't be over yet.

You know, I drank so I could be with people.

I knew that before I ever made it to a meeting or ever talked to a shrink.

A room just gets friendlier when I have some booze in me.

My dad was a doctor on the West Side, and he used to have huge jars of amphetamines.

And if I ate a bunch of those, I could be with a whole lot of people.

And then I found cocaine and realized I'm just wasting my time with people.

And this is an AA meeting.

I've got wonderful CA stories.

You know, cocaine, my cocaine stories, my drinking stories are pretty much the same.

Just a different demographic of hooker, basically.

But when I got here, I thought because I had a real relationship with cocaine, I heard

people say that I did cocaine so they could drink more.

I did cocaine so I could do more cocaine.

I thought that meant maybe I couldn't sit here.

And it was so fortunate that I found a bunch of guys and says, you know what?

This is your seat.

You're dying.

You stay here.

This is your seat.

Nobody throws you up.

But you can go somewhere else where you can talk about cocaine, whatever's killing you.

Go there also.

You still come back here.

And I needed that.

I didn't even know that I didn't have to quit here and go somewhere else.

And I needed to hear, and I say this, you need to hear if you have a relationship with

a rig or a pipe, you need to hear somebody who loves doing that and they stop.

And you need to honor that.

You're still welcome here.

I still want to hear your stories and get, you know, you get free coffee for life.

All the benefits of it.

But, uh, the way I drank was always different.

And uh, I mean, my drag in high school, I mean, my first real drink was Halloween, 1970.

I stopped throwing up around Christmas.

I was at Halloween party.

My date left with some guy named Skippy.

I got sick to death.

Somebody punched me in the mouth.

Best day of my life.

What a change.

And this is what happens to me and doesn't happen to other people.

My dad paid a lot of money for piano lessons and we lived on the corner of Bedford in Santa

Monica and we used to have parties every Friday night for years, 15 years.

And even if we were out of town, the house would be open and people would come by and

we'd have like anywhere between 30 and 50 people.

So the D-list celebrities would come by, they would entertain like a big celebrities, a

guy named Mario Machado and you know who Mario Machado is?

Nobody else knows who he lives against.

And dad would ask me to play piano.

And he spent a lot of money for me to take lessons, but I can't play in front of people.

And sometimes I would throw a temper tantrum or I'd go to the bathroom and never come out

or I just leave.

I cannot play in front of people, but this time, and I want to say I'm not yet 20 years

old.

I was drinking vodka, vodka martinis, cause that's what James Bond drinks.

I had a good buzz on and he asked me to play and I just took a huge, I had a big tumbler

of vodka.

I just took a huge gulp and what it does for me, you know what it does for me if it doesn't

do it for you.

It's like explaining the color brown to a blind person, but it just goes down the back

of my neck, settles just at the base of my neck and just goes, and I went into the wonderful

world of, I don't give a damn what you think about me.

And I sat down at the piano for the first time in front of people, in front of an audience,

you all went away and I didn't care about performing for you.

I didn't care about how accurate I was.

I didn't care what you thought of me.

And I was just willing to let my hands surprise me and just explore the things I was going

to play.

Whether I was an artist or a musician, that was an amazing feeling.

And then something clicked that day and I thought, if I drink, I can do this.

That transferred to everything else and I wasn't wrong.

I have never once asked to go to the dance and been turned down in my life because I

grew scared to death of the girls asking me to go on the dance music at the Chippendales

on Overland.

And I'm 6'1".

I used to have a lot of hair that was really frizzy and I used to wear a leisure suit.

I was about 145 pounds, so I'm getting wet.

So it looked like a big Jewish dark.

They would set me up with apricot brandies because I like sweet drinks and I get a buzz

on.

And I have never once asked the girls to dance and been turned down because I know who wants

to go on the dance floor.

I used to avoid them like the plague, but you give me some booze and I'm going to go

dancing.

I'm also going home alone.

And those were some great times.

I mean, sorry if I could go back to being 20 years old, I drink.

There's no way I could stop.

Because I heard people say, you know, I went in trade my worst day sober for my best day

drinking and go, "Hey, go drinking with you."

They just can't say anything to me.

I don't get that because I had some wonderful times.

And then just slowly stuff started happening.

And I've got the drama stories, I have my kind of, I've lost a car, there's a 76 Buick

Riviera that I don't know what it's called, but it still hasn't turned on and I'm slowly

giving up hope.

I have this amazing knack of bringing my sarcastic sense of humor to already tense situations.

So I have a 0 and 20 barside record, but that's not the problem.

The problem was that my life just slowly, slowly turned into my bedroom.

I like meeting this size.

I got served in the Pacific.

And the Pacific is a wonderful place to get served, it truly is, but it's a big place.

And you put me in a room with a thousand people and I can hide, I'm meeting this size I can't

hide in.

The problem is when I'm sober, I'm in a room full of people.

That's when I feel lonely.

Now when I'm home by myself, now when I'm in my bedroom, I might feel thinking my life

sucks and bitch about everything, but I'm lonely when I'm among the whole of you.

And you always have this wonderful way of communicating with each other that I never

experienced.

And when I drink, my head stops telling me you're different, that's all.

And slowly, like I said, my life just basically just turned into my bedroom.

I have some jackpots, you know, I got stabbed once chasing after I got through MacArthur

Park.

And the stabbing wasn't there, I'm pretty still at the hospital afterwards.

None of those got me, so I've been robbed a few times, but none of those got me.

What happened was my dad, he was a doctor, he would have backed me into anything I wanted.

You know, I'd be going to any school I wanted to go to, I could open the business I wanted

to.

I chose to hang out in the bowling alley and work in casinos.

And bowling alleys, by the way, are great because the way I drink, see, I can't drink

in a Fufu bar because I get kicked out in the bowling alley, they kick you out, but

they always let you back in the next day.

To this day, I still like girls who went on for longer than the other one, that still

gets me hot.

I was working at the bicycle club, and one of the cast years was, we had a two-year relationship,

and she knew I drank too much, we had many conversations, she didn't know I was smoking

free-basing all the time.

You can hide it.

I know this is me, but that's a big, bad discovery.

And she broke up with me, not because I was ever abusive to her, ever screamed at me,

you know.

She just got tired of me not showing up.

Because what happened is, like, I'm the one who brought the camels back, we wanted to

go to the Pomona State Fair.

She lived out in Ratchikookamongo, we lived out in Ratchikookamongo.

And she wanted to take the kids to Pomona State Fair, and Friday night, I started drinking

in the bar.

Then I go buy my stuff and I start smoking.

And Saturday morning, I haven't slept, you know what, I promise you, we'll do it next

weekend.

I swear to God, I will do it next weekend.

And she just got tired of the two years of me promising we're going to do it next weekend.

And so, she breaks up with me, and like a good drug addict, I go, "Well, you love breaks

up with you."

You go, "Great.

I can party without hiding it."

I did that for a couple weeks.

And this is why drugs are an important part of why I have to tell my story, because I've

never once opened up a bottle of Seagram's and gotten Pepsi, never opened up a bottle

of vodka and gotten 7-Up.

I go down to MacArthur Park and I buy a $20 bottle, and I rush back to my apartment in

Downey.

I remember taking the steps because the elevator was too slow, and my hand is breaking on the

sweat, and my heart is pounding because I know how I'm going to feel.

I go up into my bedroom and I pull the pipe out of the drawer, I throw the rack on the

pipe, I take off my cigarette lighter, and I put the cigarette lighter up to the pipe,

and it doesn't burn.

I just spent $20 for a piece of soap.

And I traded a family that really loved me a $20 piece of soap.

And Anna Adelphi was raising three girls that had grown up.

I made my amens, they made all they had, just like they knew when they were five.

But Linda was seven, but Linda was nine, Amy was seven, and Anna Daisy was five.

And I still remember when Anna Daisy would run to me when she was scared, and one time

there was a movie called Chucky, but there was an evil doll on TV.

She saw it and she started screaming and crying, and I remember picking her up, and I held

her till she stopped crying, and I held her till she fell asleep, and that was the first

time in my entire life I ever felt like I was worth anything.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that I traded the love of that good ol' for a $20 piece

of soap.

And I was struck sober.

This is in 1991.

I did go down to the bar at the bicycle club, and they were going to set me up, and I said,

"I can't.

I've got to get my life together."

You ever tried to go out and get your life together?

Sixty days later, I am playing Russian roulette with a Model 15 Dan with less than 357 mag.

And the interesting part of that, Model Dan with less than 357 mag, and the cylinder doesn't

spin which takes all the sport out of Russian roulette, but I reached a level of depression

I didn't even know was available to me.

I'm 60 days sober.

Your life's supposed to get better?

I'm scared to go to sleep because at three o'clock in the morning, I'm waking up wanting

to kill myself, and I'm scared.

I spoke to a girl who worked at another club, and the reason I spoke to her is because she

was a cutter, and I don't understand cutting, that's not my deal, but she shared her pain

with me.

I was able to share my pain with her, and the worst part about the depression and the

loneliness and all the hate in my life, I thought I was the only person that felt like

that.

I had no excuse.

I knew she wouldn't laugh at me because I felt like less of a man for being the best.

I'm supposed to John Wayne my way out of everything.

So I spoke to Debbie.

I said, "Debbie, I haven't free-based and I haven't drank in 60 days now, and I want

to kill myself.

This is, I think, weird."

And she goes, "Oh, yeah.

When you stop drinking, you have to replace it with something spiritual."

Now I'm totally screwed.

I'm Jewish.

It takes years to become a rabbi.

I'm in trouble today.

So I go talk to Jeannie, and so now we've got to back up.

Jeannie met her like four years before, and she flirted with me, then she goes into the

bar, and I see her again for two years, and I remember because when I met her, she was

maybe 60 pounds overweight, and now she's lost all the weight, and she looks amazing.

Jeannie just, oh, she was in this brown t-shirt, and I can still see her today, and she's walking

down the concourse of the bicycle club, and I go up to her, and I say, "Hey, Jeannie,

let's go get a drink."

She goes, "Oh, no.

I mean, you're sober."

And I had no idea what sober meant, except it meant I wasn't getting lucky then.

But Jeannie thought I was her lucky dealer.

Now the reason I don't deal cards anymore is because the way I dealt cards, if I liked

you and you were a good tip, you'd win.

If I don't like you, you're going to pay him off.

You don't tip, so you don't even get a hand to play.

They had videotape of that.

No sense of humor about that shit.

So I just retired as a computer programmer in healthcare, and Jeannie thought I was her

lucky dealer.

And I had nothing to do with it.

She was a great tip, and she had a rack of one-stop.

And so Debbie says, "Go talk to Jeannie," and Jeannie's like, she got sober, and she

was like five years sober at that point.

And I go up to Jeannie at the table, and I said, "Jeannie, I need to talk to you.

I haven't smoked any crack, and I haven't any drink in 60 days.

I killed myself."

And she goes, "That's great."

I go, "No, no.

I don't think you're hearing me, really.

I'm not kidding.

I am scared to go to sleep because I wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning thinking I need

to blow my brains out."

She goes, "That's fantastic.

What are you doing?"

She goes, "No, you're doing—you're going to be all right."

"Yeah?"

She goes, "Why don't we meet tomorrow?"

So she couldn't talk to me then because she was winning at the table, and you don't get

up winning for anything.

She goes, "We'll meet tomorrow for lunch," and we met in the Wilshire area at this Chinese

restaurant because I'm Jewish, Jeannie's Jewish, and when two Jews 12-step each other, we go

for Chinese food.

I don't know what a 12-step call is, but then she starts describing my feelings, and I didn't

have the vocabulary, but she knew my insides better than I did.

And she described that loneliness that you can hear coming out of the walls.

Everybody else on the planet learns how to put together a life, and you just got me with

basic.

You never got the basic instructions.

Then she asked me, "Have you been walking on this planet your entire life waiting for

the mothership to come take you home?"

And I've always felt like that.

That's my earliest memory.

So she could have taken me anywhere.

Where she took me was a place called Chandler Lodge, and Chandler Lodge was just loving

and accepting, and I had no idea what was going on.

They were calling people to share, and I had no idea what they were talking about or that

they knew what to say.

The steps looked ridiculous.

I mean, one was like, "Your life's on the map, I only have a life."

Two was, "I'm not in the store."

Three was the God thing, and the God thing was, "Not that I didn't believe in God, it's

just that I wasn't worth it.

There were so many other people.

They should be in front of me in mind, in my cell."

Fourth step was homework, fifth step was giving yourself up.

We don't do that.

Third and seventh was complete poetry, and eight and nine was no effing way, and that's

exactly how you work the steps without a sponsor.

Perfect.

Here's the thing about me that makes me do my drinking different than other people's.

Alcohol fixed my life.

It did something for me.

We don't let it do what it does to us if it didn't do something for us.

And so, I honestly, I've never been mad at alcohol because I honestly believe that alcohol

just kept me alive long enough to get here.

The second thing is, when I stop drinking, life gets worse.

When I get sober, that's when life gets painful.

And the third thing about the, I don't know about you guys, but I can't have a bottom

bad enough that'll keep me sober for the rest of my life.

It just gets my attention for a little while.

And losing Delphi and those kids was a real bottom.

I had other bottoms too.

But a few months later, I'm just forgetting how bad it was, and I'm thinking maybe I can

just have one drink and I'll be fine.

And then, you know, maybe I'll, I only have like seven, eight months, and I'm scared to

death because I don't know how to share anyone I'm going to share if I take a birthday talk.

And by the way, I've given 30 birthday talks, I don't remember any of them, so if you're

sweating it out, don't worry about it, you're not going to remember either.

But I said, I can't remember how bad it was, I've been sober 30 years, you hear someone

talk about, you know, I don't want to forget how bad it was, you forget, we're human, we're

just good.

I can still remember this.

I can remember going down, getting, you know, getting my medicine, going back to my apartment,

going up to my lips, having to go down, and thinking, oh my god, this feels so amazing,

how could I ever give this up, immediately followed by, you just fucked up.

And I'm sorry, yeah, Nathan, he sent me a text saying, you know, no profanity, no biggie

if you look at it.

I tried telling the story without that, but it just, can't do it without the ministry,

sorry.

I still remember that.

And my sobriety though, it didn't mean much to me, I just went down to zero, and you can't

buy it back, you can't get a letter from the governor, so what I did is I went back to

my meetings and people asked me, how are you doing, and I said, fine, how long are you

sober now?

And I tried to remember sobriety, I went to meetings for two and a half years telling

people I was sober when I was getting loaded or drunk every single night, and that's loneliness

on top of loneliness, 'cause now I'm like, I'm covered with this plastic bubble.

And I just got tired of lying, and I get fired from every casino, i.e. all I've been doing

is working casinos, hanging out in bowling alleys, so I have no marketable skills and

very high salary bonus.

So I'm scared, and this one girl calls me February 14th, 1985, and her name was Peggy,

and Peggy was a slipper.

Is that when everybody stayed sober from their first AA meeting?

Peggy, first time I met Peggy, they were pulling the vomit out of her ear.

Her last week was in February of 1992, and now it's 1995, she's got three years, and

I said, hey, if you don't have a job, you may have to go up north, this is Wofford Frasier

Park, and I'm scared to go up there, and she goes, oh, you're three years sober, aren't

you?

They go, no, I got loaded last night, I think I was able to talk to her.

And so she said, well, get to a meeting, and the reason I'm here today is because it was

a Tuesday, and the only meeting I knew about was on a Tuesday, and I went to a meeting

on the Tongan River side, and the first person I run into was Jeannie, Jeannie Ardeo, she's

gone, and Jeannie's glad to see me, and she goes, what are you doing, Dave, why aren't

you sober?

I got loaded last night, please don't tell anybody, and she was still glad to see me,

so I thought you had to be sober to go to alcoholics, and she was still happy to see

me.

And then the secretary comes out and asks me if I'd leave the meeting, and says I can't

because I don't have 24 hours, please don't tell anybody, and the person she did ask to

leave would ask me if I would be one of the people who would share at the meeting, because

I can't, I don't have 24 hours, please don't tell anybody.

I told every single person I met that they stayed up with me till it was four in the

morning to give me my first day, and the next day this guy named Mike, who I liked because

he was balder than I am now, picks me up and takes me to this huge meeting in Brentwood.

There's over a thousand people there, I don't remember a damn thing about the meeting, except

when they sang Happy Birthday, they just go keep coming back.

The channel, they go keep coming back sober, which I meant that's the only way you're welcome

back, but here they just go keep coming back.

That's all I remember about the meeting, and he takes me home, and I'm feeling good, and

he goes, "Well, go to a meeting tomorrow, I'll pick you up," and I go, "I didn't think

so.

I've been to a meeting two days in a row, don't you think I've done enough?"

And he goes, "No, no, no, no, we'll go to a meeting tomorrow," and says, "No, no, really,

I've turned myself over to God, I've gotten out of this meeting two days in a row."

And he goes, "I'll be honest with you, you're probably not going to stay sober."

And I go, "What?"

"I'll be honest with you, most people don't stay sober, I don't think you're going to

be one of them.

I only went out of 10 to stay sober, you're probably going to get loaded," and he was

right.

I was planning on my connections open 24 hours.

And I said, "Well, why the hell are you taking me to meetings if you know I'm not going to

stay sober?"

He goes, "I don't know what it does for you, but it keeps me sober, and I do shit for you."

This is why I have 30 years, not because I've worked a fantastic program, I have not found

God.

I don't know what God means.

That's the wonderful thing about that whole accident, was you ask somebody what they believe

in God, you've learned nothing about them.

You ask 300 people what their idea of God is, you get 300 completely different answers.

But I stayed sober that night just so I could call this complete stranger until I didn't

get loaded the night before, and I don't know where that comes from.

I couldn't stay sober for Delphi, the kids, my own parents, for decent jobs.

I stayed sober just so I could call up this guy and tell him I didn't get loaded the night

before.

And that's how I stayed sober my first 30 days.

I call up Mike every single day, and of course I called him to ask him to be my sponsor,

and then I would call him and name him.

Well, there were times it was so hard, and I would call him and say, "The sobriety is

too tough.

I feel like I'm going to die if I don't have a drink."

He talked to me, he says, "Look, you want to have a drink tomorrow, maybe I'll go drinking

with you."

I know he's playing a 24-hour-a-day game with me.

He would get me to promise not to drink today, not to drink tonight.

I would go to sleep, hang up the phone, looking forward to taking a drink tomorrow.

And the reason to help me God that I've got 30 years is simply because I've never once

woken up, and I've been grateful I didn't get loaded the night before.

And I still haven't spent much time on that.

Oh, cool.

I'll tell you, well, thank you.

How Mike took me through the steps.

I had a problem with the God thing in the third step, and I didn't think he was available,

so that's all.

And Mike was really sweet and gentle, and he always asked me, he says, "Do you believe

that your attitude towards God today will be different a year from now?"

I said, "Yeah."

He says, "That's all we've got to talk about."

And I go, "Well, then you turn your will over," he says, "Turn your will over to the life

of this program.

Turn your life and the care of your will over to this program, and you'll experience the

evil."

I was able to do that.

It's always made sense to me.

It still makes sense to me today.

And I've always felt I've always been the third step once.

Every time I waver, instead of doing the third step again, I go back and I go, "Did I really

meet up when I said it back then 30 years ago?" because I haven't kept many words in

me.

I'm not the most unreliable person coming here.

And he was gentle and easy with me.

And this is the story that, I'll tell the story again.

My mom passed away in 2019, and I was a conservative from her state, and my brother died previously.

And so, my dad died in 2009, so all my mom's money was spent on my mom, every single penny

other than mine.

This is pretty good, because what I used to do for a living is basically wait for my parents

to go to sleep so I can go through their works.

And we were clean.

My brother, that litigation we had, I wish I could make an immense dream today that I

didn't back then.

So, if you're holding back on your immense, I get it.

I really do.

I don't.

Because I didn't get it.

Satisfaction.

I've been sending a letter to a grave site, and I wish I could talk to him now.

I can't.

It's the way it is.

My dad and I were pretty clean.

He had a dementia.

You can lose people, you know, mentally, before you lose them physically.

But when I talk about what A has done for me, it's really hard for me to say because

I don't live in a parallel universe, and when I was 20 months sober, it was the first time

I was ever asked to speak at a meeting, and I was nervous, and now I love doing this.

In fact, I'm the reason most of my meetings have a title.

I was asked to speak at a meeting called Barney Street, and my uncle Jerry in Chicago had

cancer and my parents went back to Chicago to be with me in his final days.

My mom calls me on Friday night at about five, and she goes, "Jerry just died.

He wanted you to come back and be a Paul man, so you're going to make an entrance to come

back.

The funeral is going to be Monday."

I call up my sponsor, Mike.

I say, "Can you speak for me?"

He says, "You can't do that."

I call up my eight brothers, "Can you speak for me?"

None of them can speak for me.

I go through with this.

I show up there at Barney Street, a guy named Ted Bracey was the secretary, he takes me

out for dinner.

I go, "How many people are going to be at this meeting?"

He goes, "About 500."

And now I can't keep it too talented.

"What are you going to have for dinner?"

"Water.

Water would be fine."

I get to Barney Street.

There's about the same amount of people there, is there?

That was all.

Twelve people there.

Four of them were people that I asked to speak for me, and they showed up just to watch me

make a fool of myself.

And then they stayed with me all Friday night.

Saturday, I went to a GSR function, I was an assistant GSR.

And Saturday is a Pacific Day meeting, and they stayed with me all night.

Sunday, they took me to the beach, took me to LAX to get me on a plane to Chicago.

They gave me phone numbers to call, and I called people, and I was able to go back and

be with my family.

I didn't have to find a hooker so I could score some drugs, and I didn't make a fool

of myself.

I didn't have to share my opinions because I joined too much.

I was able just to be there and be a service to my dad who just lost his kid brother.

And for years, I shared how wonderful A's been to me because I would always carry you

through the rough times, and I was six years sober.

Again, Richard Levy, if I told this story, came up to me.

Richard's gone too, and he says, "That's a wonderful story, but you missed the whole

point of it."

I go, "What do you mean?"

I'm grateful for A.M., grateful for the fellowship, and he goes, "When your mom called at five

o'clock in the morning, you were able to answer the phone."

And that hit me.

In sober 30 years, I can't tell you how many amends I have not had to make simply because

I'm hanging out with you guys.

If I'm stuck on gratitude, and I'm one of those people I resent November, I'm not grateful.

My sponsor asked me to do a gratitude list, and now I'm still just as pissed off, and

now I'm pissed off I'm not doing the gratitude list.

But I can always be grateful for the amends that I don't have to make just because I've

been here sitting with you guys.

And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

I'm done.

No, I'm done.

Thank you.

See you tonight.