Nine Years Sober: Gratitude, Giving Back, and Finding Roots

All right, Nate, alcoholic. First of all, I want to thank Quality of Life, you know, just for

the honor and the privilege of being the secretary for the last year.

I ran out of excuses and I, you know, it was my turn and I had to do it and I'm glad that it's

over with, but I did have a wonderful experience doing it. I was telling Abraham, you know,

as far as commitments go, it's a lot of work, you know, but once you find that groove and you,

you know, get used to incorporating, you know, making the phone calls into, you know,

kind of your work weekly routine, it really isn't that big of a deal and the feeling that you get

and when you get to hand it over is worth it. You know, so I've been, you know, honestly,

I've noticed that it does feel like a little bit of weight has been lifted and yeah, I'm just

grateful for all of it. Going back to, you know, Quality of Life getting started and Chuck and,

you know, the founders, we've got some of the founders of Quality of Life here who decided to

make that split. You know, I'm super grateful that I ended up here. I'm super grateful that I'm here

today now with you. I'm really grateful, period. You know, they talk a lot about the gift of

desperation and I certainly had the gift of desperation. I didn't lose complete hope,

like a lot of people have to do to make that, you know, to be able to be walked through that door

and be confronted with the fact that they have a potentially fatal progressive illness and if they

don't treat it, you know, it's jails, institutions, or death. You know, it's very serious and we have

fun in this group. You know, a lot of fun in this group. We like to joke around and laugh and stuff

but I just wanted to touch on that really quick because it is very serious and we have to treat

our disease. So, that being said, I want to first qualify my sobriety date is 4/11/2016. I've got

nine years of sobriety. My sponsor is sitting right here, Scott B. Yep, awesome dude. Check

him out if you don't know him. Sean, he is joining us on Zoom. He is my lone sponsor for the time

being and I love him very much. He got his commitment covered. He's got a panel at a

treatment center in Las Vegas and he got it covered so he could be here to support me

tonight. Sean, I love you very much. The light of my sobriety, I would have to say, helping him

through, you know, some of the challenges that he has faced has been extraordinary in my own

recovery. You know, I know that I've got somebody that I'm basically guiding and knowing that,

make sure that I stay accountable for my own recovery. You know, and he'll call me on my

stuff too. You all know that. He's not shy. So, I appreciate that and I appreciate him. So, let's

start with the BS before sobriety. Let's talk about what I was like, what happened to me, and

what I am like now. I think that's an important distinction to make. A lot of people come up here

and say what it was like, what it's like now, you know. But it wouldn't have been as it was if I

wasn't as I was. So, you know, let's talk about causes here, you know. Owning my side of the

street, it's been a fun experience for me. So, you know, I'm from Minnesota, just outside of

Minneapolis. Until I was like five, my parents were married. We had a nice little house in South

Minneapolis, you know, pretty nice neighborhood. Some of my earliest memories are, you know,

very joyful memories playing with my brother and our chocolate lab named Dorje. That's a Tibetan

word. I'll tell you about it after meeting a few other kids. But, you know, it was a loving house,

but my parents were at each other's throats. And I remember lots of arguing, lots of hostility,

you know, and none of this made me an alcoholic. I want to be very clear about that. I'm not sure

exactly what made me an alcoholic. But I do know that my alcoholism certainly manifested way before

I had my first dream. I was always on edge. I was always uncomfortable. I always felt like people

had it all figured out. They were at ease in their own skins. And, you know, growing up,

I developed a pretty good knack for hiding how I really felt on the inside for the most part. You

know, I don't want to make that a blanket statement because I did have, you know,

lots of good memories. I always had friends, you know, I have good memories. I didn't,

you know, there wasn't any real trauma that I had to contend with at an early age other than

my parents splitting up. And, you know, I remember my, after they split up, you know, my mom,

she did the best she could. She was diagnosed with lupus right around the same time that my

older brother was born in 1980. And she had a whole host of, you know, physical problems that

went along side the lupus, either caused by or, you know, intensified by. She was, you know,

a single mom, you know, working part time jobs when she was well enough. We didn't have a lot

of money. I remember one of my first resentments was at my aunt. They, my aunt and her husband,

her husband owned a commercial heating and cooling company, and they were really well off. And,

you know, I just remember thinking to myself, like, you know, all these kids at school, like,

you know, they all have like nice things and stuff. And like, you know, why won't she buy

that stuff for me and my brother, you know, and just just really no starting point for being

grateful. I always felt like the world had a leg up on me. And it, it bothered me. I was embarrassed.

My mom, she would drop me off to friends' houses and stuff. And I remember having her drop me off

down the block, like, you know, just like be read like I would turn be read about like her dropping

me off in her little five speed hatchback Mazda with a white door on a maroon car because she got

into an accident. And I was just like, I was petrified that people would like think that I was

less than, you know, that's, that's what it was. I was trying to, Matt, I was trying to compare my

insides to your outsides, you know. And, you know, that's, that's, that's disaster for a young kid.

So, you know, it started with GI Joes and Ninja Turtles and He-Man and stuff like that. Cartoons,

you know, anything to avoid being present in the present moment, I was petrified of dealing with,

you know, these weird thoughts, these weird, weird emotions that I didn't know how to reconcile,

you know, I didn't know why I was feeling that way. So instead of like, you know, opening up

about it, and risking my exposing my, my, myself to people, you know, admitting that I was less

than perfect, I would just, you know, do my best to pretend that they weren't there. And GI Joes

and Ninja Turtles and He-Man helped a lot with that. It was baseball cards, man, I had boxes and

boxes, boxes of baseball cards. It was baseball itself. I used to throw tennis ball up against

the garage door like 1000 times, you know, which did end up serving me a little bit later in life

before I, you know, showed up to a tryout with a bottle, a jug of vodka in my baseball bag and did

not make the team, needless to say. And it was skateboarding, it was hockey, my mom, you know,

she knew well enough to move me and my brother to a nice suburb, you know, with good schools,

no crime, you know, that kind of stuff. And so, you know, where I grew up, it was like the lone

apartment complex in like this really nice city. And, you know, we used to call it the projects and

stuff like that. But one good thing about it was that there's huge field for playing sports. And

during the winter months, there was a hockey rink, you know, complete with like, you know, goals and

a warming house and all that stuff. So you know, every day after school, it was just March on down

there, no matter how cold it was, and, you know, play hockey. Yeah. And forget about my feelings,

you know, I did get pretty good. I, you know, I was always trying to be a class clown. I was

always like a popular kid. I always had little girlfriends. I always had friends, you know,

but it was it was it was terrifying for me. I and I didn't know how to articulate any of this.

Very tough for a little kid. I had an older brother who was three years older than me,

which also might have fed into me isolating and not letting people in knowing exactly how I felt

and what I was thinking. You know, my older brother, and I had an older cousin who was two

years older than him, you know, they used to really put me through the ringer. You know,

they would pick on me, you know, pretty harsh for a little kid like pin me down and fart in my face,

you know, that kind of thing. And it was tough, you know, and I remember just like, you know,

I would I would go crying to my mom. And, you know, they'd be like, Oh, quit being such a baby.

And I'd be like, Alright, I can't win here, you know, what am I supposed to do and just take it

started, you know, pick up a butter knife and fight back what, you know, I probably

read shows back. I don't know. Um, but like, that's the extent of like, my problems, you know.

So, um, my, my brother, he will come back to for sure. He, he was probably in sixth grade,

which would have made me in third grade, he started getting in trouble. He started smoking

pot, you know, I come to find out doing a lot of LSD, mushrooms, you know, probably other things,

I'm not sure definitely drinking, you know, getting in trouble at school, he ended up

knocking up his girlfriend when he was 15. You know, working a McDonald's job and really not

caring about school. And, you know, it started to be a real big problem. So, you know, my mom,

again, with her wisdom, who, you know, in my eyes, today, absolute saint, despite her shortcomings,

she moved us to another school district, about 15-20 minutes away, even nicer suburb, Minnetonka,

they talk about in Boring, the principal be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place.

Great for, you know, great for everything. My, my brother, you know, he found his people right away,

and I didn't have any friends. And sure enough, I fell into a crowd where they were smoking and

drinking and having fun. And, you know, at first, I was able to be like, No, I don't want any of

that. I'll hang out with you guys, though, because you're funny, and you're fun. And we like the same

music. And I really didn't want to be like my brother. I despise my brother. Another one of the

early resemblance that I had towards him is I remember he would, he knew how much I loved

baseball. And he did it at some point earlier, too. I would, you know, beg him, beg, beg him

to come play catch with me outside. Like, finally, I get him out, it'd be going great for about five

minutes. And he purposely throw the ball over my head, I'd be in the woods looking for the ball.

And by the time I found the ball and got back out, he'd be gone. And, you know, what a jerk,

you know, he was a jerk. And we ended up talking about it after I got sober. And he came to tears,

he had no idea that that stuck with me. And, you know, he was very apologetic about that.

So, you know, I found my my clan. I was really into rollerblading and skateboarding and BMX,

you know, my grades, you know, because I had that transition phase between new school or old school

and new school. Like all of a sudden, I'm getting like perfect straight A's. You know, I'm taking

all the advanced classes later in high school, the AP classes, you know, I'm an excellent student.

I'm a good athlete. I've got everything going for me. Like, really, but still, there's this nine

thing at me in me that I don't know what's wrong. I don't even know how to address it, you know.

So, by that time that I was 13, and I had that first drink, or that first hit a weed,

I was ready for it. I was ready for it. And it shut my head off. And I had found bliss in a bottle.

I absolutely wanted to drink every single day of my life. And the mental obsession grabbed a whole

pretty damn quick in me, you know. And I'd been working at a little pizza joint. The managers,

they were like, cool, like, you know, in their 20s, guys, you know, they would buy me and my

best friend, you know, like a case of beer to do the cleanup for them. So, we were staying there,

you know, Friday, Saturday nights, smoking pot. But yeah, I could not get enough alcohol,

like, and it was apparent at a very early age that, you know, I was a problem drinker. I didn't

see it that way. I, you know, really, it was the effects of alcohol, right? That was why I drank.

And that was all that I cared about. Any consequences that came my way because of it?

Well, that's just, you know, part of doing business, you know, being a drinker, I need to

feel good. And I don't care really what happens outside of that, you know. I didn't trust like,

a little bit later on in life, like, you know, after I turned 21 and stuff, like, I did not

trust people that didn't drink or at least smoke a little bit of weed, for heaven's sake. Like,

I did not trust you. Like, I thought something was wrong with you. Like, straight up, like,

did not trust you. So, you know, that was it. Just the incomprehensible demoralization of some of my,

you know, early decisions that ended up defining, you know, kind of my early adulthood. Like,

I had a high school sweetheart, you know, we're madly in love. And then she ended up going to

college about an hour and a half away. And I, you know, I would come visit her on the weekends and

stuff like that. But every time I would go out there, you know, I would make a fool out of myself.

I would, you know, cause her trouble, you know, with her friends, get her friends asking questions.

So then, of course, she'd be asking me questions. And I don't want to hear any questions. How dare

you question how I'm drinking, you know. Again, this is what I need to sustain myself, because

it makes me smarter, funnier, better looking, all that, you know, BS. And so, you know, needless to

say, I, you know, give her no choice but to break up with me, destroy that relationship. My

grandfather ended up passing away from lung cancer. I was really close with him. He was this

cool World War II vet. He loved baseball, loved pool playing. My middle name, Sonny, actually,

was his Navy pool playing nickname. They would call him Sonny. And that's my middle name, Bill.

So I'm looking like you could really understand. And he passed away. And I showed up to his funeral,

drunk as hell. And got into a big fight with my cousin, like fistfight out in the parking lot,

you know, just brought so much shame to my mom, the rest of the family, you know, and of course,

it was always somebody else's fault. It was never me. I was perfect. I was, you know,

I was the smartest person in the room, you know, and if you don't believe me, go ahead and test me.

But if you say something I don't like, I'm leaving and it's your fault. Yeah. Yeah. And so then

there's that I got fired from a bunch of jobs. I was an assistant manager at a Valvoline instant

oil change when I was, I don't know, I was in college, so I must have been 20 or 21.

A girlfriend was coming to pick me up to go to a party, I was supposed to count the cash and

lock the door and all that, of course, we'd be we would have been probably each of us,

all three of us that were working on Saturdays, we were, you know, at least 10 beers in, you know,

and I left the cash register uncounted open, I left my keys on top of the podium. And I didn't

lock the door, you know, that was actually a really good job. They were helping pay for my

school, my schooling and, you know, manager got called. He was on a fishing trip, like two hours

north, had to drive all the way back in the middle of a vacation. Yeah, it was not pretty. Shortly

after that, I got my first DUI blew a .29 crashed into a neighbor's parked car, you know, it was

pretty disastrous. So, you know, after all that, I just, you know, basically given up on, you know,

trying to finish school, working a good job. Basically, from there on out, it was just get by,

as long as I can drink the way I want to drink, I don't care about all the rest. And that's what

I did. My mom passed away a couple years later. My father, who had been basically estranged, lived

out here in, he lived in Thousand Oaks at the time, he was like, "Hey, you should come work

for my friend in Santa Barbara. It'll be great." I had no idea what I was getting into. I ended up

in Goleta right next to Isla Vista, a great party town for a 23 year old buddy and alcoholic. Like,

honestly, I cannot think of a better place to end up. And I had lots of fun, you know, from what I

can remember and what I'm told. And, you know, it was great. One day I woke up, my dad called me and

was like, "Yeah, your boss, Todd, he's in jail, and he's probably not getting out anytime soon."

He drank like I did, snorted cocaine like I did, smoked weed like I did. His father was a legitimate

rocket scientist for Raytheon. And part of my job was to hang out with this guy. He had like early

onset Alzheimer's, or some kind of dementia. And so I would bring him to appointments, bring him

out to get ice cream, that kind of stuff. And he, you know, he had quite a bit of wealth. And Todd,

my boss, was fraudulently signing checks from his dad's estate account. And him and his sister didn't

go along. His sister caught wind of it and, you know, called the authorities. And I was out of

job, he was in jail. And so I moved into another one of my dad's friend's houses. Oh, I only got

like 10 minutes left. I better get sober. I ended up helping my dad's friend get sober. When I was

17, I tripped for a month straight on LSD. It was a drug induced psychosis. I'm lucky to have gotten

out of that relatively unscathed. I had to do a month in a psych ward and I had to go to rehab.

In that rehab, they brought us to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And these meetings were

not like anything I had in my mind. They were fun. It was young people smoking cigarettes,

joking, laughing, enjoying their sobriety. That right there, I am super grateful for,

because that left a good taste of Alcoholics Anonymous in my mouth. I never really lost

complete hope, I think, at least partially due to that. I always kind of knew it was waiting for me.

So I drank myself silly, you know, burned all my bridges, ended up homeless on the streets of

Minneapolis. Really, I thought I was sick. My dad made a phone call or asked part of the church that

he was a part of the Center for Spiritual Living, which isn't a traditional church, they honor all

faiths. If, you know, anybody knew how they could get his son into rehab, my boss's boss

was a practitioner at that place. And he said, "Get him on a plane." And so I hopped on a plane.

My dad had to come get me from Las Vegas airport, because there is a liquor store in that airport.

And I did not make my connecting flight. So my dad drove from Camarillo out to Las Vegas,

and luckily found me pretty quick and brought me to Tarzana Treatment Center. And, you know,

I can't believe that I work there now. It's kind of surreal. I never wanted to work in rehab,

in treatment. I just, you know, I figured I'm batshit crazy enough, you know, I, oh,

I don't need to be around it, you know. And, you know, I had a pretty decent job out of treatment.

So, you know, it wasn't really something that I was thinking about doing. Sean worked in the

outpatient department after he finished, and he was moving to Vegas to be closer to his kids.

He'd finished school. And, you know, he's like, "Hey, you should work at Tarzana Dream Center."

And, you know, I gave it a little bit of thought, and he talked me into it. I can't remember exactly

how that went down five minutes. And, you know, I ended up there, which is a very beautiful thing.

But, you know, getting to treatment, like, I had had my fair share of fun. I, you know,

I knew what was coming. I knew that I needed help. Towards the end of my drinking, I was talking to

myself, like I would catch myself talking to myself like there's nobody here. I could have

swore when I ended up at Tarzana Treatment Center, they were going to give me a bunch of pills. And,

you know, it was going to be like a more of a mental health thing. But

turns out, I just needed to not drink for like a few days, which I had not done for, you know,

15 years or however long it was. And, you know, I had done a lot of work imagining myself sober

and happy. I attribute that a lot to my ease, I want to say, or my willingness to relinquish

my thinking. I heard everything, well, tried to hear everything that was being said to me.

For the first time in my life, I would listen to people. And, you know, a lot of people might think

that that would be burdensome, but it was so freeing. Finally, I didn't have to figure

anything out. I trusted what you guys were telling me, I could feel it in my heart. And I fell in love

with Alcoholics Anonymous. You know what I did, you know, I say I'm grateful because, you know,

Alcoholics Anonymous, if you catch alcohol, alcoholism in here, which I did, you know,

Alcoholics Anonymous will leave you better than it found you when you first were, you know,

diagnosed with with your disease. You know, my life is so much better than it was way better

than I could imagine. And it's all because of this program. My brother, he definitely drank like I

did. During the pandemic, he was a chef by trade. He was a great musician, too. You know, he was out

of work, drinking, you know, all day, every day, nothing really going on in his life other than

drinking. And he was hospitalized. And he was diagnosed with hepatitis A, that's alcoholic

hepatitis, you know, liver problems. And he, you know, he was he wasn't forthright with with any

of the family or me. And he, you know, he passed away. He wasn't wasn't even the call. And I was

very fortunate to be able to do a very thorough amends with him, you know, focusing on my side

of the street, you know, because always it was back and forth, back and forth. And nothing came

to that I had to just focus on being a good brother, you know, and through, you know, strong

sponsorship and, and the steps and, you know, I was able to have a pretty good relationship with

him. And I'm, I'm super grateful for that. He knew, he knew where he could go, you know, and,

and why I got the gift, and he didn't, I'm not sure, you know, we did, we did not have a great

relationship. Um, you know, we had a terrible relationship until I got sober. My dad, he used

to smoke weed and drink, like every day until I was like a year sober. He just he saw the change

in me and he just quit. You know, I helped him clean out his apartment when he moved up to

Seattle about three years ago and, and on it in his armoire built behind a bunch of like paperwork

and stuff. We found an almost full bottle of absolute vodka, and like a half an ounce of some

really green stinky weed. It was amazing. He was like, I was like, Oh my God, and like he just

poured it down the sink and you know, flush the weed, which I was like, dude, you could at least

sell that, you know, like you're basically throwing away money, you know, and then he went

to a meeting and, and he called me and he's like, Hey, Nate, guess what? I'm not an alcoholic. I was

like, I know, alcoholics don't, you know, just throw away stuff, be able to stop it at, you know,

whenever they want, you know, which is weird, you know, bless his hippie heart. I want to,

I want to thank you guys very much for allowing me the opportunity. I haven't came up to this

podium and spoke like this since Friday night, you know, eight years ago or whatever. So, you know,

for more than 10 minutes, Abraham, thank you very much. And I love you all. I want to thank

my sponsor, my beautiful higher power. And that is unconditionally loving of all of us,

as well, Bill and Bob, Scott, Sean, both of you guys. Thank you.