Megan's 36-Year Sobriety: From Near-Death to Recovery

Well, my name is Megan King. I'm an alcoholic. Probably the most important thing I can say at all.

Get sober November 21st, 1988, and have been able to stay sober without alcohol and no drugs. No,

no, anything. I've had a colonoscopy. So I did have they did give me some stuff that I and I had

open heart surgery recently and they picked me through massive drugs then but it's nothing that

was very pleasurable and nothing I was looking forward to being honest with. I'm sorry, I'm not

wearing a tie. That's kind of the reason for that too. I'm not allowed to wear anything tied around

my neck or my waist. So I'm following orders like like I've been doing for 36 years. 36 years.

That's crazy. Oh, I am a native of Reseda. I went to Blythe Street Elementary, Northridge Junior High

School, Cleveland High School, went to Cal State Northridge spent my summers at Valley State

College, doing the teenage drama workshop. I love the valley. But I couldn't wait to get away from

it to be honest with you. You know, I spent a lot of time all over the country. The work that I did

took me all over the place. And I really enjoyed it. I, you know, I never wanted to be an alcoholic.

I remember I grew up on Lanark Street, right off of Reseda Boulevard, and that was kind of

contractors row, you know, and they, there was there was Morris, who was the carpenter,

you know, and then and Woody, who was a big contractor, big time contractor, and then there

was Mr. Larson, and he was the plasterer and then well named, I might add every after school, his

son was a friend of mine, Jimmy, and after school every day, I walked past their house,

and he was always in the garage working on his plastering tools. And he would work on them from

330 to 536 o'clock, whatever. But he had, I don't even know if they make it anymore, brew 102.

That was that was what he drank brew 102. And he could finish an entire case of brew 102,

all by himself between 330 and 530. He had the sometimes he would have a friend over there and

help him but I remember like my grandmother his smell, and I know now that it's the smell of

alcohol being rendered through a liver that's now working very well, you know, and I remember that

smell of smell of the county USC. When I've gone on panels there, I know it well. And I promised

myself I would never be an alcoholic. So I did as many drugs as I possibly could while I was in high

school, you know, anything to stay away from being an alcoholic, but it is of my nature,

on both sides of my family. We're riddled with alcoholism, my I have two older brothers,

both of them alcoholics, one of them sober, one of them is living on the street for 50 years all

over the country, just living on the street, you know, it's like, he also has some other issues,

you know, and, and he's been sober from time to time, but he just, it's tough for him to get this

thing. I think he is constitutionally incapable of being honest with himself. And it kind of keeps

him down. Anyway, all I'm gonna look like I drank plenty, and I have to tell you big drunk a lot. I

loved doers. That was my favorite scotch and Miller light for some reason, Miller light,

Miller high life. No, that was that was what I drank. And, you know, I became like Mr. Larson,

I could drink that stuff, you know, like it was going through me anyway, I'm gonna tell you why

alcoholics anonymous has worked for me. And that's all I have the right to tell you about how it has

worked for me. I in November of 88, I had attempted suicide early on, and things are not going well

for me. I was 34 years old, and I had been living the high life for a long time. And then it became

the low life. And then it became no life at all. And I was living with a beautiful editor to south

of the boulevard on Ventura there on Dickens, and she had a condo she had the penthouse condos,

really lovely. And somehow she liked me. I had been in a party, I was blasted. And she saw me

at the party. And she like, zeroed in on me, I did not know that there were people that love

alcoholics. We call them Allen ons, you know, but she was an Allen on I could see it and she was she

was very codependent as as we came to know the term, and she just was nuts about me. And I was

with her for about six months before I was going right out of my mind. She drank about a bottle of

wine in a week. And I was, I was helping her do a bottle of wine a week after I had been crazy for,

you know, 1415 years, I mean, out of my mind, and I cut my finger while I was typing and I ended up

in her bathroom, the master bathroom with jacuzzi and everything was really the nice, you know,

not my bathroom, you know, and I opened up her medicine cabinet and everything just kind of saying

at the same time she'd been seeing a psychopharmacologist for 16 years, and it was

chock full of whatever you might imagine would be in there. It was there and I looked at it,

I went, Okay, I know how I'm going to die, you know, and I took pills from each one of the vials

looked her plenty, you know, and I went over to the Lucky Seven Motel over on Sepulveda right there

before Ventura Boulevard. It's called the Lucky Seven Hotel and I was in room 21 and I took about

180 pills and drank a bottle of Dewar's my favorite Scott had some marching powder had some

weed and I just as I was going out, I remember saying to myself, I'm glad I wish it was a better

way, you know, but it was done. I'd written seven suicide notes out to other people that I didn't

want to blame for my suicide like they were going to and it's fine. And I remember going out like

that I came to 18 hours later behind the wheel of my car and I was over on Valley Vista Street

over there by the by the wash and he was on the radio. You know, it was like this stuff was going

through my and I was coming to for a couple of hours. It took me a while to come to when I came

to I realized I had a bottle of scotch between my legs. Somebody sold me a bottle of scotch,

you know, me and my blackout, you know, I was kind of the reason why I also did a lot of drugs was

because I was apt to black out anytime I drank. I came to and the next day after I had a tearful

reunion with my girlfriend, my brother was sitting on the edge of my bed. And my brother

gotten sober a couple of years before an Alcoholics Anonymous and he was crying. I said,

Mike, what are you crying for, man? He said, I think you're gonna make me like, you know,

if it had been anybody but my brother, I could have written it off. But it's my brother,

he had partied with me the whole time, you know, he knew what I was all about. Yeah,

we would get together at his house, Thanksgiving and Easter. And he and I would take off get away

from the crowd and we'd go to over the thrifty drugs and go into the cold storage there. And

he grabbed two club cocktails. I don't know if they even make them anymore. But they were those

eight ounce cans. And he got two of them, like, really, they're awful. They're like,

terrible, sweet drinks or whatever it was. And we got out of there and he got in the parking

line of, you know, and he drank it down. And I knew what an alcoholic was, because I've watched

my brother, I've watched that sense of relief come over. Wow. And then like that, I said, Hey,

dude, you don't you want to slow down a little bit down that second one, man, and whatever. I said,

I don't I don't know what I'm going to do. And he said, Well, you can't you don't have any insurance,

you can't go through shit like I did. What shit? Oh, my God, they made him drink until they

couldn't drink anymore. You know, that's how they cured that alcoholism. But he had gone through AA

and I gone to a meeting with him out in Newhall. And it was the longest hour and a half of my life.

That's what I remember. The guy was talking was like 25 years sober. And I swear to God,

he spoke for eight hours. It seemed well, it seemed fun. And I remember as we left that meeting,

he was like 40 days sober. I said, Well, Mike, you just keep going back because that's what I

heard them saying at the meeting. And I gone to AA one other time when I got popped. It was

a Saturday night. I was driving on Vermont over by LACC cup pulled me over. He said, Whoa,

I was following a girl. We were racing through Hollywood. And the couple and he said, Have you

been drinking tonight? And I said, Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I'm coming from a party. He said, Well,

like, what do you have to drink? And I said, I have a couple of scotches, you know,

said anything else? And I said, Well, I do have a bottle Mickey Big Mouth between my legs right now.

And he said, You have an open container in the car? And I said, No, no, I got the lid on. He said,

Get out of the car. He said, Okay, I'm going to administer the field sobriety test. And this was

a couple months after mothers of drunk drivers come out in 8182. And I just went up. He said,

I'm going to administer the field sobriety test. I said, not necessary. He said, Hey,

I'll tell you what's necessary. And I said, No, no, like that. And he looked at me like I was from

Mars, nobody had ever turned themselves over to cop before the Rampart division, got to the rampart

division, you know, there were seven of us in the back of the squad car, I mean, on top of each

other. And the guy who was on top of me was kicking the cage, and they got him out of there,

and they just kicked the crap out of him. I was I was kind of a happy drunk. Anyway,

I ended up going to one meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I knew everything about it after

that. And I didn't want anything to do with it. And I signed my court card for the rest of the

meetings that I had to go to, I think I had to go to nine meetings. And so I said to my brother,

I don't I don't know what I'm going to end up doing that. He said, Well, you're going to have

to find a place to go because Brianna doesn't want you living with her anymore. Got that. So

took me a couple of weeks, and I ended up at the Victory House in Burbank, which was a home for

indigent men, which meant that the government did tell the California State paid for men to get sober

in this place. Most of them were coming out of prison, but there was some of us just coming off

the streets. And I had nothing. So I qualified in spades. And I ended up in a room with four other

guys that snored and farted. And it was awful. And I remember the first meetings that I went to

over there in Burbank. And it was like, the first day was a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

And guys, they're at the door, the greeter, you know, and he's like, and he said, Oh,

you're new, aren't you? And I said, Yeah, and he said, Sorry, sorry, the copy bars over there.

Look, I'll save you a seat next to me. And it's like, yeah, I'm sitting next to you,

dude. Don't worry. And I couldn't sleep for the next two nights, you know, and by the fourth day,

which was Thanksgiving, Thursday, I was out of there. Unit A had a thing called an alcathon on

or a thankathon. I can't remember what it was. But that's where I went. Because I figured I could

sit in the middle of the back there and eat donuts, and just give the stink eye to anybody

who came around. But I didn't realize that giving the stink I was just the best thing that you could

do to invite people in and alcoholics anonymous. I got, you know, I first guy to the donut,

some guy said, Hey, yeah. So I got on the bus, I went back to the victory house. And there were

two guys left out of 87 of us in that place. And they were watching the Twilight Zone marathon.

And they didn't even acknowledge that I walked into the room, which is fine, which was fine. And

down the hall, I hear this guy said, let's ride the sobriety bus. Nobody was allowed in this place,

man. But you could come to the top of the staircase, and you could screen down the hall.

So I looked in it was that dude at the meeting that it greeted me right. And I was like, man,

and he looked pitiful. He looked like Barney Fife. And I know there's a God because God gave me pity

at that very moment. And that pity is the thing that saved my life. I said, I got that on the

sobriety by some Bob, which was a primer gray 1969 econoline van, green shag carpet on the dashboard

wrap hanging out the bear, and Bob was riding the road to happy destiny. And he was really happy.

But I hung I hung out with Bob for 36 years. I you know, I've been hanging out with Bob for a

long time. And Bob was like the scruffy kind of dude who's having a hard day. He was a carpenter,

but he was having a hard time getting a job at the time he just come to LA from Portland. And

he ended up being special effects guy over at Warner Brothers on three different things ended

up doing really well for himself ended up in the Pomo, California. And I don't know if you

guys know about the Pomo, but it is the most temperate climate in the country. And he lives

there. And he's, he's got his workshop. That's all he gives a damn about, man. He's a lovely man,

a good grandfather. And he's shown me through his own way of living what sobriety is. We were going

through the steps together. And we got to the, you know, immediately I hated the idea of doing

any of the step work immediately just because it was going to be work. But more than that,

I didn't trust any alcoholics. I had nothing to base that on. So I just kind of hung around with

Bob and he didn't care. His deal was like, just hang, just hang. It's okay. You'll be all right.

Just hang. And I hung around him and I did the stuff that he did. I would I would do the service

work that he was doing. I'm going panels with him. And alternatively, at that same time, I was going

in the Pacific group. And wow, it was like night and day between Burbank and Brentwood over there.

So I went through that. And I'm starting to work on the steps. And I'm on the fifth step going

through it with Bob. And he says, Okay, so you're number one resent. My father was my number one

resent. My father was a Broadway trained actor, booming boys. My name is Megan King. Look me up

on IMDb and you'll see who my father is. You can check him out too. But he's this guy who we came

out here in the 50s. And he started doing westerns. And he you'd you'd recognize him. Anyway, he was

had this booming voice and scared the hell out of me as a kid. And he was loud all the time. He was

loud, you know, and an actor's life is a weird life to begin with. Because, you know, they're

waiting around all day long to get an interview to go get a job all the time, you know, and the

afternoons could be weird around my house. We all stayed away from my house as much as we could in

the afternoon. Anyway, I was four years old. And this was the resentment that I'd written for Bob

was my father was I don't even know what I had done. But my father was screaming at me, you know,

and just taking me apart. He didn't. He wasn't being physical with me. He was just being totally

overbearing. And I'm four years old. And I'm, I'm peeing my pants. And I just totally shut down. He

said something and it was like, so we got to that. And we finished the fifth step. And he said, Okay,

well, what's your what's your part in that? What do you mean? What's my part in that?

Four years old? He's screaming at me. What's my part? And he said, Well, how old are you now?

He said 34 years old. He said you carry that for 30 years. That's your part. So a thing was getting

weird for me. It was way weird for me. So I said, Well, now I've got a resentment for you. So good,

pick up the pick up the big book and read page 552. And on page 552. Even if this big book,

it talks about a 14 day prayer for resentment. And if you'll pray for the person that you have

the resentment for to have all the things that you want for yourself in your life, don't even have to

mean it. Just do it. 14 days in a row, you will change. And it's like, what? Oh, yeah. Okay, fine.

So I'm just on my fifth step. I'm doing the 14 day prayer in about three days. And I decided,

if I'm going to do it, I'll at least do it twice a day. And in the middle of the third day,

I had something happen. And I went, I got that I was the one who gave my father all that power,

even if you're four years old, it doesn't it doesn't matter. I still had given him all this

power. So what was to be done resentment and forgiveness. You know, a couple of years later,

my parents were living in Portland, and they moved up there. And I drove up myself and my brother

drove up with his family a couple of days later. And we met there. And it's right before Christmas.

And my brother said, Whoo, can you feel it? I went what said shits about to hit the fan,

pardon my French. And he said, Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Well, this is day the board games are coming out.

Something's gonna happen, you know, so he had his 14 year old son there. And we were playing risk.

And my father and I said, he said, Well, what do you want to do about it? And I said, do nothing.

And he said, never anything that would have occurred to us before. And so we were playing

the game. And my father, I'd taken it quick. And he was like, he started making his noise that he

made. And I looked at him. You know, a couple of minutes later, my brother took him in something

and you were, you know, and he didn't go anywhere with it. And my nephew was not even one of us

picked up on what was going on. And my dad made a noise and his direction. And he went grandpa,

you know, I did. And my father was like, I don't know if you guys know soupy sales, but he was,

he was black tooth by the end of the guy. There was nothing left of his of that thing that he

had gone. My mother died in '08. And they were living up in Portland, and I had gone up there

to see them before she passed. And she was one of the most spiritual people I've ever known.

She was like, you know, I come to her when I was a kid and I go, Mommy, it's not fair. And she said,

You're right, honey, it's not fair. But we're going to do we're going to treat the world the

way that we want to be treated. And my mother did treat the world that she was going to be treated.

She had altruism before I knew what the word meant. And it was like, she knew how to do stuff

for other people. And I didn't get what that was all about at all. I mean, it wasn't about me. What

was it about? But on her deathbed, she said, Okay, now you got to take care of your dad. And it was

like, God, and I said, Okay, and my father wanted to live up there never wanted to come back to LA.

So we're dealing with traffic again. It's like, so we got him out of that. I got him out of the

house and got him into an elder living place. And he didn't like that. And then we got him into

another one. He liked it there. But they started mistreating him. They started giving him meds

when he wasn't supposed to be on meds. And I had to go up there and you know, just run interference.

And it was getting hard. I was going up four or five times a year. And it was like, man, and

finally, I went up there, what am I going to do? I had seen on the YouTube, a friend of ours lived

out in motion picture of in Woodland Hills. And she had just turned 100 years old. She was on Jay

Leno. And she and Jay Leno were having a spanner. And my dad said, that's where I want to go. And

it'd be like, All right, all right. So they took him away. He'd worked enough. So they really

wanted him in really fast. I got him in like within a month and a half, we got him, you know,

going there. And he went through all the levels of care that you could go through. He had a cabin,

then he had a really nice place. And then he was starting to lose a little bit. And he went into

palliative care. And he went into their race dark Villa, which is a really nice hospital,

really, really, really nice hospital. And then he went into hospice care. I was there the whole time

with him. We were going through this whole thing. And I was I was just running interference. My

brother wanted nothing to do with him. So like him, you know, I don't have anything to say to

me. And it's like, Okay, okay, well, I'm going to anyway. So a couple months before my dad passed,

we had a lockdown. They had it whenever they get the flu out there, they've locked the place down

for a week. And they locked the place down for three weeks in a row, I didn't get to see him.

But he was having, you know, metal stuff going on, then he didn't related, he just knew that

I wasn't there. And it was like, I like abandoned him, I guess, because my anyway, I walked in one

Saturday after it was all over, and he was sitting by his computer kind of terse. And I said, Hey,

Pop, how you doing? He said not so good. And he went on me for about five minutes in a direction

that no human being should ever talk to another human being was nasty, horrible stuff. Your mother

would be so I mean, stuff like that. It was like, horrible to listen to it. I listened to it after

five minutes of it. I got up and I started to go. He said, Where are you going? I said, I have to

listen to this old man. He said, Well, don't let the door smash in the ass on the way out. And I

said, Don't worry, I won't. And here's the great thing about it. I had people to talk to about it.

I had people who had been through stuff similar. And I knew who they were, because I've been in the

meetings, I've listened to what they'd gone through. And I knew the people to go to. And I

went to a couple of friends and talk to them. They said, you just got to back off. Here's the deal.

He's playing the big shot out there. And everybody loves him out there. He can't yell at anybody out

there. You're the last. You're the last hurrah for his screen. It was like the thing that I took

as a kid, the thing that I never wanted to take again. I was there. And I was in the middle of

that thing. And I was like, Okay, all right. So I called the next week. And I said, Pop,

I'm bringing came out my old girlfriend, and he loved her. They loved each other. And so we're

all going out to lunch. And so we went out, we had lunch, and he had a great time. The next week,

I called him. And he said, Hey, you know, that thing we had a couple of weeks ago said, Yeah,

I remember said we should never do that again. Wow. But he said, I want to tell you, you were

more wrong than I was in that moment. I just, I couldn't help it. I really did. I just started

laughing. And I realized why I was laughing a little later, you know, Karen and I were talking

about doing 10 stuff. I did a 10 step that night and said, What was that about? And I went, Oh,

I know what it was about. I realized that in all that healing, and that was about 25 years of

healing that he and I went through together. I had and that's how this works. This is the best thing

that has ever happened to me. Blur none, not no doubt about it. I mean, it gave me a system to

go through gave me you know what, I'm still kind of lame and dense from time to time. But I'm vice

president of the board of directors for Barney Street. I'm the treasurer for Vesper house. I

have a panel that I have been doing for 27 years and brought in the hospital, go once a month,

get to see all the people in the detox. I go to three, four meetings a week. They asked me at the

detox, they say, Okay, so you're 36 years old. Sober, you know, like, haven't you got anything

better to do on a Saturday night at eight o'clock, then hang out with us, then I can

actually turn on and say I don't and it's not for lack of opportunity. It's because there's nothing

better that I could be doing. You know, I I've changed. I love that I get to be part of something.

This is the greatest movement that is unheralded. Nobody talks about this. I'm fine with it. And I

you know what, I wish everybody could get this. But I see, you know, I've grown up here, I'm watching

all of my friends get older now, you know, and all the people who'd continue drinking and all that

kind of stuff. And it's like, I'm 71. Now. I mean, I'm having stuff going on. I'm getting older.

But I'm seeing my friends and they're like, ancient. They're like, you know, the body does

not take drugs and alcohol all that well for a long time over the lung. And they were my they

were my party buddies, you know, and it's like, I just stopped the party 36 years ago. I was lucky

to be able to do that and get turned on to this thing. Anybody who may be new out there, I don't

nobody looks to be particularly new around here. But anybody who's new, all I can say is hang out

and this thing will work its magic. Commit, jump in, don't be afraid. This thing won't bite you.

Here's what I found. I'm the yes man now. People say well, you know, and I was always the no man

before I was always the guy that said, Oh, you know, if I do that, you know, and I do something

for someone else, and I don't get something out of it. What a schmuck I am, you know, it's like,

not at all, not at all, man. I every time somebody has said, Hey, will you come and do so and so with

me, I haven't mind f'd something that I'm going into. I go into it, I go into with an open heart,

and I always have an experience that's always better than I ever could have imagined that it

was going to be. And that's what life is for me. Now, a bunch of experiences that I do not have to,

I don't have to coordinate how the world goes. I don't have to control the world. The world's

happening the way that it's happening. I get to exist in this world. I get to be part of this,

which is the great fellowship as far as I'm concerned. I back and recede it. What can we

tell you? Thank you very much.