Kurt S.: From Burn Scars to Sobriety – A Story of Restlessness & Recovery

Hey guys, Kurt Saks, alcoholic.

So grateful to be clean and sober tonight and in a meeting, upright in this condition.

I want to thank some of my friends for coming out to hang out with me here tonight.

I also want to thank your secretary for asking me to come out and share a little bit about

my spiritual development.

I want to wish Nate a happy birthday, 43, huh?

Wow.

Yeah, I mean it all kind of happened for me right here, but I didn't grow up here.

I grew up in Northeast Philly, which is not really, it's measurably different than Reseda.

And I grew up to two parents that love me, you know, and I'm loathe to talk about alcoholism

at all without talking to you a little bit about how it was before I took a drink.

Because I, like Nate, really believe that my alcoholism kind of lied in wait for me.

I really believe that I was never really right.

It was just something always not right about me.

In fact, you know, when I started to hear the words and the language of Alcoholics Anonymous

years ago, you know, in that first part where it talks about, you know, our nature being

restless, irritable, and discontent, I understood that at a very deep level and I understood

it before I ever took a drink.

In fact, the truth is, is that I lived my life in a state of restlessness, irritability,

and discontent.

You know, from the time I can remember, I just feel like I was born that way, you know.

So consequently, anything that would change the way I felt was really welcome in my life.

You know, my parents love me, I have a sister, you know, 100% my sister and we're nothing

really alike.

I mean, we look exactly alike, but you know, we don't drink alike, you know, we don't,

we don't, we never, she doesn't understand me and I don't really understand her in that

way.

While my parents really loved me growing up, they really didn't love each other and my

memories of my childhood were not really all that good, you know, they used to fight and

there was no real domestic violence back then and I lived on a street which was about as

wide as this room and if all the houses were attached, they were brick houses, there was

just enough room for a car to go down and everybody knew everybody very, very well.

Everybody knew everybody from blocks over, it was just a very, it was just kind of a,

it's interesting after being in California for a few years when I went back there, everything

looked so small to me, you know what I mean, whereas it didn't look that small when I was

growing up.

First thing I remember was, other than my parents fighting was, you know, I was left

alone a lot and my mother and my sister went out and I got hold of my father's Zippo cigarette

lighter and I lit myself on fire accidentally and in turn lit my house on fire and I almost

died that day, I was three, I burned 40% of my body, I was in a hospital for a very, very

long time back when, you know, there was no real burn technology and I'm telling you these

things about my life because I think it's important that you kind of know a little bit

about who I was and what had happened.

You know, I've been in AA a long time now and I know that everybody has a reason to

be ashamed of themselves, I've heard enough fifth steps to know that, you know, maybe

you were the kid that stuttered or you were a fat chick or you were the one that went

to bed until you were 40, I don't know, you know, you stuttered, this one did that, everybody's

got a reason and for me, I carried a lot of scars, you know, on my body, I had scars on

my face and my arms, my chest and it was humiliating for me and I grew up in a neighborhood, not,

I mean, most neighborhoods were like this but kids were not kind to me and I was ridiculed

a lot and I was bullied a lot and I kind of thought I was a coward because I really didn't

kind of grow up, you know, wanting to hurt people, you know, and I just didn't really

understand anything, I mean, I was four years old and I remember this very, very well.

You know, I don't know if this has anything to do with my restless irritability or discontentedness,

I don't know if it has anything to do with, you know, why I became alcoholic but I do

know this, it had a lot to do with how I felt about myself as a human being, you know, and

I did not feel good about myself as a human being.

My mother and father got divorced at, I was probably seven and I was grateful that they

did because of the way that they used to fight, you know, and I should probably say this too,

you know, I felt a little ashamed, you know, because everybody felt guilty about what happened

to me as a baby so they were kind of like, they were kind of like raising me with kind

of kid gloves, you know, and yet my sister took every beating that I ever deserved, you

know, I mean, I would cry listening to my sister get beat because I grew up in a time

where the kids got beat, you know, I mean, it's just the way it was, you know, and I'm

not completely in disagreement with that either, I mean, I have five kids today and I kind

of know a little bit about what it takes to raise kids but I will say that I felt very,

very bad about that, you know, my folks got divorced, my mother was one of us and my father

was not, my mother had a very bad drug problem back then, Xanax used to be called Valium

and my mother used to really, really like the Valium along with all the other downers

and, you know, once my father left there was not a whole lot of supervision going on and

I pretty much just ran around, did what I wanted to do and I got in trouble, you know,

I got in a lot of trouble, I got to hang out with the older kids back then and, you know,

the bridge that went to New Jersey was 15 minutes from my house and back when I was

growing up you only had to be 18 years old to get served alcohol and you could buy and

drink 24 hours a day in New Jersey back then, so, you know, needless to say, you know, the

14 and the 15 year old kids were bringing back alcohol and I started to drink at a very,

very early age along with taking mom's Valium and I have to say that it was magical for

me, I mean, the first time that I experienced what a drink were two or three would do, it

was a cathartic experience for me, it was one of the greatest things that really ever

happened to me in my life, you know, I will say this too, you know, just relating to the

language of the big book again, prior to ever drinking, you know, not only did I have the

irritability and the restlessness and the discontentedness and not only did I not feel

like you looked like you felt, I didn't feel like I didn't feel like I was experiencing

my life the way all the kids were experiencing their life, but when I read the part about

being bodily and mentally different from our fellows, you know, I thought about all scars

on my body, you know what I mean, and I thought I am different from my fellows, I've always

been different from my fellows, I never felt like okay in that, you know, the language,

you know, you know, what's really interesting is that, you know, I read these words in 1981,

you know, and I've always been fairly intelligent, like I can assimilate information, I know

how to read and I, you know, I can think and they applied to me every bit of it, but I

could not, I could not sober up in 1981, but I started to become the Alcoholics Anonymous

in 1981, I was 17 in 1981, you know, by the time I was 17, I had been in California now

for about five years, four years, five years and when I got to California it was like 1975,

I had already been in a boy's home for two years because my mother was unable to, you

know, she's kind of unfit to take care of me and by the time I was 14 years old, I kind

of felt like an adult, I mean, I honestly, I don't feel any more growing up today than

I did then, you know what I mean, I was able to take care of myself, you know, I was able

to, you know, not in a way that society thought that I should, but that didn't really matter

for me, you know, and I want to say that I found you guys, you know, I was always really

able to find you people, I was always able to find my people, you know what I mean, wherever

I went and when I got here I found you guys, I grew up, like I said, in Northeast Philly,

in the streets, there was no mountains, there was no lakes, there was no, there was a lot

of concrete and steel where I grew up, you know, if you ever watched the movie A Bronx

Tale, it's pretty indicative of where and when I grew up, you know, and I got here and

my father owned a bar in Canyon Country and back in 1975, I mean, Canyon Country was like

a lot of wide open spaces, you know what I mean, we lived in a trailer behind a bar which

was perfect for me because I like to drink, you know, and I went, they put me in a school

called Mint Canyon Elementary School and kids were like riding their horses to school.

This was really screwing me up very well that, you know, I have no idea about horses or any

of this, you know what I mean, and I'm thinking, this is like, it was like the Twilight Zone

for me, I didn't know what I was going to do, you know, and I didn't fit in, I didn't

measure up, I, you know, by the time I was 14, though, I learned one thing, I learned

how to fight, I learned how to fight because I got really tired at some point and just

lost my mind and just, you know, the bully just got the best of me and, you know, by

the time I was 14, you know, I could use these, you know what I mean, and I'm not really proud

of that, you know, but it changed a little bit of the trajectory in my life and I wasn't

as scared as I once was, you know, and, you know, by the time I was in California a year,

cocaine was the big thing and I was drinking all the time, I lived behind a bar, I learned

how to shoot pool with a lot of the, you know, illegal people that were here and I just,

I really kind of enjoyed that whole environment at 14 and, you know, I acquired a pretty big

debt to the cocaine dealer, I'm not a guy that believes that drugs is an outside issue

in Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't want to say that right now, I don't believe that it's

an outside issue, I believe my sexual orientation is an outside issue in Alcoholics Anonymous

and I believe my political preferences are an outside issue, I believe who I pray to

is probably an outside issue, I believe who I sleep with is an outside issue and I believe

what I do for a living is probably an outside issue but I don't think drugs are an outside

issue, so, and this is a pretty good part of my story so I'm going to share about it.

I had a $6,000 debt to the cocaine dealer by the time I was 14 years old and by the

time I was 15 years old I was carrying a gun everywhere I went looking for a way to pay

off the drug addiction that I had, by the time I was 15 years old it would look like

I decided to not go to school, not get an education, it would look like I made a choice

to not have a girlfriend, it would look like I made a choice to not pursue sports or music

or any of these things that I was really pretty good at, you know, gratefully I have to say,

you know, I was always kind of pretty good at everything I ever was passionate about,

I was just never excellent at anything because I had a preoccupation and I really just really

loved to drink and I really loved to, you know, put drugs in my body, you know, it almost

took away every other choice that I had, you know, a lot of people will speak in Alcoholics

Anonymous about, you know, how the recovered or how, you know, I choose this or I chose

that and I didn't experience it that way, you know, I don't really feel like I had

much of a choice in any of it, it happened the way that it happened and if I could have

stopped drinking at 17 I would have, I should have, I was every bit the alcoholic at 17

and I was at 23, I just couldn't and consequently, you know, I mean, I started to go to jails,

I wasn't really able to hold a job, I quit high school, I never finished high school,

I went in the military, I got in trouble in the military, I got in trouble everywhere

I went because of my drinking, I got in trouble everywhere I went, nothing turned out cool,

I didn't have any success in my life at all on any level with relationships, with anything

until I came to you good people and even before I got sober, when I came to you good people,

it felt like a safe and good and okay place for me to be and consequently, you tolerated

me as a guest in your rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, you tolerated me, I come in here

and I would bring all of my lack of etiquette and all of my disrespect and all of my ways

you know, that I learned out there through my childhood which I just told you about into

your rooms and I would do the same thing here as I always did out there, you guys were always

kind enough to feed me, give me cigarettes, y'all smoked back then, you know, I could

borrow $20, I get high in your bathrooms, I did nothing but disrespect Alcoholics Anonymous

and the whole time I was doing that for the most part, you people were always really,

really good to them.

I can't say I've never been thrown out of AA because I have and I deserve it, you know,

but back then, they'd follow you out and they'd say, look, don't go too far, man, we really

want to help you, you just can't do that in our meeting and I would say something like,

don't worry, I'm living right there by that trash can, I'm going to be back on the very

interesting meeting, you know, which, you know, by the time, you know, after going to,

you know, countless jails and hospitals many times, Tarzana Treatment Center, you mentioned,

you know, I remember Tarzana Treatment Center when it was a mental hospital, you know, and

the whole back part of it was dirt, right and they had a big Wednesday meeting there,

I'm going back many, many years, you know, they used to have a state hospital called

Camarillo Mental State Hospital and I've been stitched up, I've done so many humiliating

things, you know, by the time, you know, I started to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, I

did things that I never thought that I would do, you know what I mean, a lot of them were

of a sexual nature, you know what I mean, but I did a lot of other bad things, but I

did a lot of things that caused me to carry a lot of shame about myself, you know, and

I wanted people to see this version of me that I wanted you to see, so I would project

that, you know, I would project the version of strength, you know, because that's what

I wanted you to see, I don't know how good I did that, but that's what I did, you know

what I mean, because a lot of this stuff I was never going to tell you about, I couldn't,

I didn't realize, I mean, somebody told me a long time ago that, you know, you're only

as sick as our secrets and my first response in my heart and head was, I'm pretty sick

then, you know, because I got some pretty big ones, you know, and at least I thought

I did, so I'm starting to come to AA in 1981, I got thrown out of the military, and I can

tell you a lot of funny stories if you want to laugh, but I'm a little exhausted tonight,

but I mean, I'll tell you one, I, you know, when I would drink, I would get stupid, I

don't know if this ever happened to you guys, but like, I was in the military in a unit

which was a combat oriented unit, and I was in the Marine Corps with Marines that were,

you know, getting ready to retire, they had already, you know, did, you know, combat in

Vietnam, I mean, this is how old I am, you know what I mean, and they're getting ready

to retire, and they were old, they were like 35 or 37, you know, I was older than you back

then, because I'm 17, and, you know, I was in, I was in the military, the sergeant's name

was Sergeant Carter, he's a black man from Alabama, and he had four purple hearts, he

had a bronze star, you know, but he was a sergeant, he was just a regular working guy,

you know, and he was in my unit, so we would hang out together, we would drink together,

you know, he wasn't, you know, he wasn't a company commander, he wasn't even the platoon

sergeant, he was just a guy finishing up his time so he could retire, but he was a war

hero, and I remember we were walking across the grinder and a second lieutenant which

maybe was 18 or 19 years old, you know, who never ever fought in his life, you could just

look at him and knew that, you know, but he had some kind of college, he made a stop,

walk over to him and do the whole salute thing, you know, they take that really serious in

the Marine Corps, they take the etiquette really serious, and kind of the way the Pacific

group takes wearing a suit and tie, you know, they take it very serious, you know, and I

went over there and saluted them, and then I was drunk and I went to the PX and I bought

myself a set of captain's bars, which outranks a second lieutenant, and I put them on and

I went, I was in the third battalion, seventh Marines, I went to the fifth battalion and

I started to make people salute me because I wanted to see how that felt, which was really

fun up until the time I came across my company commander who was there playing poker, and

I'll never forget that, oh, sass, you just want to promote yourself to a captain, you

know, and I went off to the brig, and now, let me tell you about the brig, I mean, I

don't know, I'm having fun here, you know, I got, I got another 15 minutes, you know,

the brig is an interesting place, it's not like jail, you know, they make, they have

you make, they have these big, big sheets of rock and you have a sledgehammer and gloves

and for 10 hours a day when you're doing hard labor, you break these big rocks into little

rocks, it's very, it's very, it's very intriguing to the mind, you know, and then you break

the little rocks into even smaller rocks and then you break the smaller rocks into sand

and then what you do is you shovel the sand in these sand bags, you know, and you do this

for 10 hours a day, seven days a week and you run out of rocks, don't worry about it

because there's a D4 that's going to break brand new rocks for you, you know what I mean,

and this is what you do, you know, that was, that got my attention.

In 1987, I had been homeless two years, I used to live in a park down the street here

at Woodley Park, I lived there, that was my residence and I welcomed being homeless, you

know, a lot of people are like, oh, my God, I'm homeless, I wanted to be homeless because

I could no longer answer for myself, you know, thank God there were no cell phones or pagers

back then, you know what I mean, but I, I couldn't think about having a job, I couldn't

answer a phone to have one more people ask me one more hard question, like, where are

you, you know, that's a tough question for an alcohol, well, I don't even know where

I'm at right now, to be honest with you, how are you doing, that's a wonderful question,

it's like, oh, my God, you know, you don't want to, you know, just things that you just

don't want to talk about, right?

When I was homeless, it was like, this is great, I can now, I can, my alcoholism can

now have the freedom that it needs to flourish, you know what I mean, like, I don't have to

answer for myself anymore, but in 1987, I went to another treatment center called the

care unit in West Hills Hospital and I got really, really sick, that's what happened

to me, I got really, really, really sick, I came down with 104 fever, my bowel movements

were white, my urine was red, my eyes were yellow, my liver swelled up to about 16 centimeters

big and I weighed about 140 pounds and a doctor in the intensive care unit, because the care

unit was in the hospital, told me that, you know, you might not make it, son, you know,

do you pray, do you believe in God, this is not a good thing when a doctor's asking you

this kind of thing and I prayed, I prayed my ass off because I was scared I was going

to die at 23 years old and I begged a God that I hardly believed in, but I certainly

didn't think love me because of a lot of the events of my life, but I begged him to maybe,

you know, save my life, like, I don't want to die yet, I didn't, you know, it's funny,

you know, I envisioned myself kind of a hard guy, but when it all came right down to it,

I was just scared, man, I just, I just, I was afraid to die and God answered my prayer,

you know what I mean, I laid down and I slept for like 20 hours and when I woke up, my liver

had shrunk back down and my fever had dropped significantly and I thought to myself, what

a coincidence, you know, this is great, you know what I mean, and this is the thought I'm

going to stop drinking, I want you to, I want you to know that, it wasn't, it wasn't, I've

never said in 38 years, you know, I'm never going to do that again, I'm never going to

drink again, I'm never going to do it, never going to, I've never said that, I always knew

that I would, you know, I always had in my, like, I know that if anybody can screw a miracle

up it would be me, I really believe that about myself and so God sent me to the hole in the

sky at Sherman Way in Topanga, I bet you know where I said, at Sherman Way in Topanga, there

used to be a big clubhouse there, a two-story AA thing and those people loved me, they tolerated

me and they took care of me and, you know, I read the words of the big book and unlike

a lot of you, I really thought that they didn't really apply to me, now I've been homeless

for two years, I've been locked up everywhere, you know what I mean, and my life is just

a disaster, I've never had one single success in my life but for some reason, I just didn't

think that the words meant what they say that they mean in the book, I read that book and

when it talked about I'm going to die or I'm delusional or when it talked about I have

to completely give myself to a simple program or when it, when it talks about telling me

how I have to tell somebody else my whole life story, you know, when it talked about,

you know, making a difference and making some changes, you know, changing my behavior, I

actually thought that it was a little drastic, you know, and I didn't do much of it but I

love the unity of AA, that's the thing and I kept coming to AA, I was homeless so it

was very easy to come to AA but I came to AA, I came to a lot of meetings, I came to

four or five meetings a day, you know, I loved AA, I still love AA, I still go to a meeting

every day in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, September the 10th, 1987 is my sobriety date

this time around, I want you to tell you, I need to tell you something right now, you

know, I'm a guy that really believes that my alcoholism preceded my drinking and I'm

a guy that really believes that just because I'm sober and I've been through the work and

I sponsor people and I pray and I try to do all the things that I know will make me feel

better that does not preclude me from being an ass occasionally.

I've realized and I have verified that I don't need alcohol to completely destroy my life

or yours, you know, I have verified that I don't need drugs to go to jail, I have verified

that, you know, I can untreated really create a lot of problems, you know, I learned at

some point in my life that my alcoholism and I want to share this, I mean, I don't think

we all have the same kind of alcoholism, I don't think that I experienced my alcoholism

the way that everybody experiences theirs nor do I feel like I experienced recovery

the way that everybody experiences recovery but I'm here to tell you about mine, you know,

and I just want to share, you know, that like it cuts a lot deeper than I drink too much

and I can't stop, I needed to get to that and I'll tell you how I got to that, when

I got here I prayed for everything I wanted, I wanted a car and I wanted a girl and I wanted

a home and I wanted a million dollars and I wanted so many things, I wanted for some

reason even though I read all this and even though I experienced life the way that I did,

I just thought to myself if I just had all of the stuff I would be okay, I just ran out

of money, I'd be alright, I really believe that at 23 and God gave me it all, God gave

me all of it and he gave it to me reasonably quick, by the time I had three and a half

years of sobriety, you know, I had everything that I thought that I needed or wanted to

make myself like a mensch in my religion, make myself a man, make myself like, I had

everything that I thought that I needed or that I would want, I had more money than I

was entitled to have and the only problem with that and I'm going over eating every

day, not really doing any step work because I can't tell you all these things that I've

done but he gave me all of that and he gave me all of that, I believe that my God gave

me all of that pretty quickly just so that I can verify that the true nature of my problem

is of a spiritual nature, just so I could get to the understanding that the problem

is on the inside.

You'd think that I would have learned that, I mean, I have to pour alcohol down my throat

or put drugs in my veins in order for me to change the way that I feel, you would think

that I would have grasped the fact that I got to fix something inside, I'm pouring something

inside to fix me, I didn't get that, you know, somebody gave me the analogy of you can put

all the lipstick on the pig that you want, you know what I mean, it's still a pig, you

know and that's, for me, that's what happened, you know what I mean and then I got all screwed

up, I had all these things and I realized that I want to die now and I'm not even a

suicidal guy but I just can't live like this anymore and I didn't know what to do but my

feet were trained and I raced over to the hole in the sky and I went in there in my

brand new car and a suit and tie and a Rolex, I mean, I had everything, you know what I

mean, I went in there and the one guy in Alcoholics Anonymous, the last guy in the world you want

to come up to you and tell you that they can help you came up to me, only in AA this is

happening, the most screwed up guy, you know, he's got some dented old Plymouth, you know

what I mean, he's got messed up hair, he's got paint on every pair of pants that he has,

he's never in a meeting, he's always smoking cigarettes outside, he's all, he looks like

Ace Ventura that sniffed too much airplane glue, this is the guy that's going to help

and you want to know what, that's exactly how God works in my life, that is the guy

that saved my life, he took me to a place where I was able to do the steps of Alcoholics

Anonymous, the first eight very quickly, I sponsor men today and I take them through

the first eight steps very quickly, usually I got them sponsoring people in their first

six months of sobriety, why?

Because I almost died, you know, well that's why, because I know that the only help that

alcoholics has for anybody, especially somebody like me is to learn how to help other people,

you do the first eleven steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't notice it four years of

sobriety but I certainly know it at 38, you know, you do the first eleven steps of Alcoholics

Anonymous just so that you can do the twelfth step, because that's the only medicine we

have for you, how many times are you going to be in a meeting and you'll have a problem

with your wife or your kids and your sponsor will say well, you know, who are you helping?

How are your sponsors used to it?

But I got a problem with my IRS, I owe them $75,000, they want their money, yeah I get

that but how's Joey doing over there with his four months, you know, you don't understand

I hear what I just said to you, you know what I mean, but this is exactly the truth, only

answer we have for somebody like me, the only way I can buy my redemption for the shit that

I did in my life and that I'm capable of doing now, hopefully I don't, is by trying to give

this thing away and I don't mean look like I'm giving it away, because an alcoholic like

me can't survive like that, I actually have to do this, this has to become a lifestyle,

the same way my alcoholism became a lifestyle, you know, there was not alcoholism in anything

else in my life, there was alcoholism, everything that I did was, you know, revolved around

that, it became my lifestyle and Alcoholics Anonymous slowly, slowly became my very lifestyle,

it became the most important thing in my life, it still remains the most important thing

in my life and I've had to fight some battles around that, you know what I mean, I do have

five children, thank God they've never seen me drink or drug or anything like that and

their mothers have never seen me drink or drug or anything like that and since I've

been sober, you know, I've owned homes and I've sold homes and I've been around the world,

you know, I've done things that I can't even begin to tell you about, you know what I mean,

I've lost portions, you know, I've made them back, I was talking to a cat today in a meeting

and he said I got my first car, I got my driver's license, it's got my name on the driver's license,

I got insurance and I got tags, he's got to be 45 years old, I've never had this before

and I brought a tear to my eye because I remember when this all happened to me, you know, this

is a miracle, this is more of a miracle than, you know, whether, you know, I paid $300,000

in taxes last year, this is a big deal, there are some really big deals in Alcoholics Anonymous

and that's one of them, I've had guys call me, you know, from Africa saying I got a job

at Xerox, I'm in Africa, I'm making a half a million dollars a year, thank you, I met

you when I was 18 and I had alcohol poisoning and you helped me, I had a guy graduate law

school when he was an IB drug user forever man and a felon, you know, he got scholarships

into some highfalutin, you know, Georgetown Law School, I've had that happen, I've had,

I can't even tell you, I mean, so many different things that have happened to me, you know,

that I got to be a part of, this is, this is like, this is what we got for you in AA,

you know, I have a girlfriend currently who, you know, I love her, she's perfect, she's

got one little problem, she likes to drink, you know, I met her with a year, so I thought

okay, I'm not getting a newcomer, right, she's got a year, right, we were doing good man,

right up until the time she took that drink, so I thought okay, I'm leaving, I'm out, I'm

gonna dip, I gotta go, you know what I mean and of course, I didn't because, you know,

I'm weak and she got sober again for another year, she drank again and I tell you all of

this to tell you that, you know, I have to put sobriety first, I have to put alcoholics

anonymous first, through alcoholics anonymous, I met God, I struggle with the very concept

of God, I always have, I'm an agnostic through and through, I question, I seek, I've always

seeked and I've always questioned, I'm not a guy that believes in blind faith or that

Santa Claus thing, I just don't but I really, really try and if I keep AA first and I continue

to seek God and if I try to take care of myself, my whatever physical problems I have, making

sure that I have enough of whatever it is that I need, if I do all those things in that

order, I get to live a pretty neat life, my kids were number four, they were number four

in my life, I love my kids, I love my kids as much as anybody but they were number four

in my life and maybe if they were a number four, maybe I wouldn't be here anymore, right,

I'm not a guy that thinks I'm going to be able to get back here if I take a trip, you

know, I've buried a lot of people, I've buried a lot of people that I've had close relationships

with, more people than are sitting in this room, you know, alcoholism kills people, I

joke, I play, I have a good time, I try to wear my sobriety pretty lightly but I realized

that, you know, it wants me dead and it'll settle for me drunk, it'll settle for me drunk,

I got the kind of mind that will keep telling me, you know, that I don't have it, it'll

tell me that.

There used to be a guy who would count how many times I cursed when I would get up to

the electrons because I didn't know how to speak, all I could do was curse, he was a

pharmaceutical salesman, his name was Jim Fish, maybe somebody, maybe somebody remembers

him, he probably had 30 years, 30 years ago, he's dead, I'm sure he's dead but he'd say

I gotta be ever vigilant because my disease is cunning, baffling and powerful and it's

patient and it keeps telling me that I don't have it and that's a problem because I wake

up in the morning and I got it, you know, I'm not a guy that wakes up happy, I actually

got to treat myself to get myself settled, you know, because it's been working on me

for six hours while I've been asleep, you know, that's what I have and there used to

be a guy named Ted Lewis that used to come around AA a lot, he was a big book enthusiast,

I love this guy, used to say look man, alcoholism, you know, you're not dealing with your mother-in-law

here, this is a very serious problem, you know, and he would joke but that was the truth

like, you know, this because he knew I hated my mother-in-law, you know what I mean, so

if you got alcoholism, get some help, we live to help you, if you're doing it right and

I'm sure in this group, you guys probably are and we live to try to help you, you know,

you want to go through the steps again, if my sponsor came to me and said look, I want

to go through the steps again, I'd say you're out of your mind, we're not going through

our steps again, you're going to take somebody else through the steps because that's the

going through the steps again and then you're going to do it again and then you're going

to do it again and you're going to do it until you get good at it and then you're going to

do it until you get great at it because that's your job in AA, if you're sitting around in

AA, you got 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 years and you're not doing that, I don't know what you're doing

in AA, I mean that's really what we're supposed to be doing, people don't like when I say

that but I got 38 years, I don't really care what they like, I've been doing it a lot,

you know what I mean, I got a little experience.

If you're new, I wish you a lot of luck and I hope you have a happy holiday season, I

hope you, I hope your dreams come true, I really do, one thing I could tell you though,

if you're new, you could get a brand new life that you've never even dreamed of right here

at Alcoholics Anonymous.

One time my kid walked in on me and I was doing a book study which I've done pretty

much my entire life since I've been sober, my son, my other son, I got, my oldest son

is right there but my middle son, he's 18 and he brought a bunch of his friends home

for whatever reason and I got like 7 people around the table, you know what I mean, we're

drinking coffee and we're reading this book and the one kid's enterprise still, I don't

know, 18, the one kid says to the other kid, what is he doing, what is he doing, he goes

well he's an alcoholic, he just helps people and the one kid says to my son, he goes why

and my son Samuel looks at me and he goes, because that's what he does, I like the fact

that my kids look at me like that because they can look at me a lot of different ways,

I mean they don't even know half the shit that I've done, you know what I mean, but

they know the other half of the shit and they can say a lot of things bad about me but that's

how they look at me.

If that's the only thing I ever got from Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll settle for that, thank you

very much.