Gratitude, Early Mornings & the Rollercoaster of Sobriety

Good evening, everyone, Zach Alcoholic.

Nobody said I could do this from the couch.

I mean, I would have taken that option.

I'd have done Pacific, I'd have done Pacific group

from the waist up.

I was the secretary of a Tuesday night Pacific group meeting

right at the beginning of, right before COVID happened.

And so I want to say a solid nine months,

I ran a meeting with a coat and tie

and gym shorts or boxers on,

and nobody knew the difference.

But thank you, John, for your share.

I appreciate that.

I'll be in Oregon on Monday,

so maybe we're gonna have to link up for a meeting.

You'll have to show me some good Oregon AA.

You know, I'm glad to be here.

My sobriety date is April 4th, 2012.

I have a sponsor who has a sponsor,

who has a sponsor, and I sponsor guys.

I want to thank Abraham for asking me to be here.

He sent me a text message

and said that I come highly recommended.

And I hope that you guys considered your source

for that high recommendation,

'cause this is someone who also might recommend

that you buy a personal breathalyzer to test yourself

before you get into your car

that has a state-sponsored breathalyzer in it

and still think it's a good idea to drink

and get locked out of that car

and have your husband come pick you up in downtown LA

'cause your car is locked.

So just saying, lower your expectations.

You know, I'm grateful to be here.

I woke up this morning at 5 a.m. to go be an adult,

which sucks, but I woke up at five this morning

and I got ready, you know, got everything together

as quiet as I could to not wake the family.

Got in the car at 6 a.m.

and got on my Saturday morning 6 a.m. Zoom

with some gentlemen that I met traveling the country.

I met these guys from all over the country

and we had such a bond from this experience

we had in Milwaukee of hitting, you know,

guys from everywhere.

And we hit this random meeting in Milwaukee

and just, you know, it was this tiny little,

there was one guy there when we got there,

he was missing, it was one-armed Bob,

he had one arm and then a couple other folks showed up

and we just laughed so hard,

a bunch of strangers and built this bond.

And so we meet every morning on Saturday

at 6 a.m. on Zoom to just, you know,

have a little mini meeting and so I'm on this meeting

this morning at 6 a.m. and when we started it

we decided to make it a gratitude meeting.

So we share about gratitude and I get in there

and I was just, you know, I was sharing how grateful I am.

I was this morning, right?

It was, you know, everything that Alcoholics Anonymous

has given me in this wonderful, beautiful life

where I get to wake up and go be an adult

and go run this work meeting that people have put me

in charge of and then come home and spend time

with my family, you know, I came home and I met my wife

and my daughter at the mall, which I don't recommend

a three-year-old at the mall, just saying.

But I met them at the mall and we, you know,

just did sober things and got to experience life

that I didn't have prior to this.

And I was sharing all about this in the meeting

and I get off and I'm just, you know, it's 7 a.m.

and I'm just rimming over with gratitude.

And then I, you know, I have my day

and I swing by the Starbucks on the way here

'cause I'm exhausted from waking up early,

swing by Starbucks on the way over here

and I get a triple shot of espresso,

the usual for like 6 p.m.

And I pick it up and I go, it's a little light, you know,

might be like maybe two shots, I just paid for two shots

of espresso and, you know, or I paid for three

and I got two and I walk over to my car

and there's a ding on my door,

which I just noticed, a nice big ding.

I'm going, I'm not as grateful as I was

at six in the morning, like, right?

It was a nice reminder of how quick that gets depleted

in my life and why it's important to continue

to come to Alcoholics Anonymous for someone like me.

Like I have to come back and I have to stay busy,

I have to stay active in my program

because my gratitude runs out really quick.

I could be top of the food chain in the morning

on gratitude and then 6 a.m., 6 p.m., it's all gone.

And again, that's why I'm grateful to be here.

I just, I have this amazing life

that I never thought possible for someone like me,

someone who, I mean, I'll get deeper into it,

but someone who woke up at seven in the morning,

my alarm was set for seven in the morning

because that's when the liquor store opened.

If I woke up any later than that, I was too far into detox

and I was shaking and uncomfortable.

So I needed to get up as soon as they opened

to get where I needed to get.

And I would start my drinking at seven in the morning

and spend the day alone

'cause nobody wanted to hang out with me.

I just, the person you see in front of you

was not the person I was almost 14 years ago.

But, you know, to go back a little further, right?

I was born and raised in the valley to two loving parents

who may or may not have had their own issues,

may or may not still have their own issues,

that's for them to, that's for my father to determine,

not me.

But I always say, I grew up having everything we needed.

Like I had everything, we had a roof over our head.

If I had toys, I had food, I had whatever it was.

But for some reason, for me, it wasn't enough.

I don't know what it was.

I've always identified with the people

that get up to the podium and say that they felt like

everyone was given the book of life and I wasn't.

I mean, I can't identify more with a feeling

than feeling like I just, I mean, still to this day,

there's things that I'm like, how do these people know?

I've started to figure it out a little bit more

that nobody really knows what they're doing.

When I became a, when I started running big jobs

in my trade now, I started running big construction jobs,

that's when I realized that nobody knows what they're doing.

'Cause all the guys that I was like,

how do they know all this stuff?

I figured out that they just go home.

So that's the book of life, it's right here.

Yeah, so I didn't know, I wasn't comfortable being me.

I remember feelings as a young kid of not wanting to be me.

I wanted to be someone else.

I had this friend named Sean and I wanted whatever Sean had.

I wanted Sean's parents, Sean's house, Sean's toys,

Sean's name, I mean, I would call myself Sean by myself

'cause I didn't wanna be Zach.

Like, I just wanna be Sean.

And then I started figuring out like,

so I could have these things, right?

I could call myself a different name.

I could also have their things.

Nobody taught me that when I was a kid, but real young,

I figured out like, if I wanted your toys,

I would just put them in my pocket and leave with them.

Like, again, nobody taught me that,

but that was just like something that I did.

And that maybe was one of those early kind of rushes for me,

but yeah, I started stealing at a young age

and always from people I loved,

never from like institutions.

I never really got in trouble for stealing from stores

or anything like that.

It was always people I cared about.

So yeah, this just uncomfortable feeling.

And then I was diagnosed with ADD, ADHD at a young age

and they put me on medication.

And for someone who already felt different

and like I didn't fit in,

that just put me on this other level of,

you're different, right?

Now I'm the kid in school who gets special privileges

that any other kid would be like, this is incredible.

I get to eat food in class

where nobody else gets to eat food.

I get to take breaks when I want.

If I fall asleep in class, they're like, it's okay.

He's on medication.

He's got blah, blah, blah.

But like, to me, that was, everyone was staring at me

and everyone was, I just felt different.

So I hated it.

And as soon as I figured out that I could like cheek pills

and spit them out in the bush, I started doing that.

It's like a lot of these weird things that I figured out

at a young age on how to do that would serve me very well

as an adult.

So anyway, yeah, just this uncomfortable feeling as a youth.

But at the same time, I had a father who drank regularly

and was what I would consider at the time,

a heavy pot smoker.

And me and him really didn't get along.

Like we butted heads at every corner

and I told myself at a young age

that I'm gonna be nothing like him.

So I'm not gonna drink and I'm not gonna do drugs.

And so I was this super straight kid.

I got into marching band and was doing the band thing.

Yeah, go band kids.

And I did it for a while.

Like I didn't drink, I didn't use drugs.

I'm gonna be this clean kid until I didn't.

Like it was like, I'm never gonna do drugs

and I'm never gonna drink.

And then someone was like, hey, do you wanna do drugs

and drink?

And I'm like, sure.

Like, I don't know why it was that quick and easy

for someone like me,

but someone offered me to be part of the cool kids club.

And I was real quick to join in.

Again, maybe that sort of, I don't fit in,

I'm not comfortable.

This was my opportunity to the in crowd.

And so, and I took it and I started smoking weed.

Like my first time was at school.

Like I did it at school.

I was high risk from the get go.

And it took off from there.

Everything kind of took off from there.

And I remember, I think I was,

I wanna say I was about 15 years old

when I finally, my father and I's relationship

hit this point where we just could not be in the same house.

And I spent a couple nights in the park,

down the street from the house.

And then my grandmother who was like my best enabler.

I mean, best friend, best friend, also best enabler.

My best, she let me move in with her.

And my grandfather had already passed at the time.

And he bequeathed me this phenomenal liquor cabinet.

Just everything you could possibly imagine.

I mean, all the liqueurs and the vodkas, tequilas,

Kentucky bourbon proof whiskey,

everything was in this cabinet.

And I moved in with my grandmother

and I realized that at the time,

when alcohol works, it works, right?

I found three shots was my like,

if I took three shots or whatever was in that cabinet,

I was at my mark and I was comfortable

and I could talk to people and I just felt myself.

And so I'd do that, I'd get home from school

and I'd take a couple shots and I'd feel comfortable

and I'd make phone calls and whatever

and just be friendly and outgoing.

And then I realized,

oh, you could just bring this to school with you.

And so I started doing that and I would drink before school.

And like I said, my alcoholism really took off

in my high school years.

It went from zero to 60 and I went from nothing to,

I'm gonna bring a water bottle

with a hundred proof Kentucky bourbon whiskey

and a bottle of Coke to school in the morning

and drink throughout my day.

And again, I was an excellent band student,

really good with music.

I'm a trumpet player, I still play,

I've been playing for 31 years.

But I was like, early on I was top of the class

and I didn't realize until sobriety

that that was the first thing,

someone said this from the podium

and it resonated really well.

That was the first thing I gave up for alcohol

was my music career or whatever, it was gonna be one.

But I started drinking so much

that I wasn't doing well in school

and they started pulling me back from these extracurriculars.

And at the time it was your fault, it was the school's,

it was this person pulled me, this person,

it was always everybody else's fault

that I couldn't do the things I wanted and it was never,

well, I mean, you were absolutely hammered in jazz band,

you couldn't read the music.

That's maybe why, but that would be years

before I figured that out.

So, like I said, took off and I dropped out of high school.

I didn't go my senior year and got out, got my GED

and went off to just go live life.

I was still out of my parents' house,

so I kinda got a little leeway to do as I wanted.

I got a couple odd jobs until I turned 17, I think,

and I got into the family business,

a little pharmaceutical entrepreneurial ships.

You know, that's what the family, that's what,

you know, I have cousins and blah, blah, extended family

that was in this business.

And so I got into the drug business

and started making crazy money.

Like, you know, as a young kid,

just living this wild, extravagant life.

I won't get into crazy details on the stories,

but I mean, by like 19 years old,

I was living a life where I was living in houses

with guys who were the sketchiest of sketchy.

Working for people who just, you know,

I had roommates who would make bad deals

and then not come home.

And the people I worked for would just swing by

and be like, you can go ahead and clean out his room,

he's not coming back.

And I knew what that meant.

Like, I knew he was not coming back.

So living this kind of wild life and,

but again, making lots of money

and not a ton of consequences,

but partying it up and having this interesting life.

But again, that sort of a feeling of not enough sank in.

And what happened was I was,

we were running this big warehouse in Chatsworth

and my partner and I in this business,

I felt like I was taking on a little more risk than he was.

So I just started to steal extra product

and, you know, turn that into extra cash.

And I got caught and I had some people hold me down

while someone beat the living S out of me.

I gotta remember, like, no profanity from the microphone.

My six o'clock this morning is mandatory profanity.

So like, I gotta reel it back.

So I wound up going into kind of like a hiding for a while.

And I think, again, another one of those,

I don't know if it was a moment of clarity,

but looking back on it again,

realized that I've always had a higher power

looking out for me, something looking out for me

because three days after that incident happened,

the warehouse was raided by the DEA.

Everyone went to jail.

I was already in hiding

and they thought I had called it in

'cause I just got my butt kicked.

And fortunately, no, there was like months and months

of videotape of surveillance on the building.

But yeah, I mean, that would have been my story.

I wouldn't be here telling that story.

I'd be in jail.

But again, at the time, I think this is just a lucky break

and I go about my business and continue to do what I do

and just went out on my own to do this.

And I continued drinking and drinking has been

this entire part of my life from beginning to end.

And a little bit of this loneliness,

I always tell this story about nobody wanted,

at that point, I was drinking so much.

This was kind of towards that drinking morning tonight

where I was drinking so much,

people didn't wanna spend time with me.

I didn't really have friends.

And so I would tell people who came over to buy stuff from me

that someone might be watching the house.

So you should probably stay for at least an hour

so it doesn't seem sketchy.

And then I'd be like, well, I'm gonna put a movie on

or some music, like, have you heard this?

Like, I was forcing people to hang out with me.

People did not wanna hang out with me.

So I would just convince them that we were being watched

so that I had people to spend time with.

And yeah, I think back on it, it's absolutely wild.

But I wound up getting married.

I was young, I was 24.

And I met this woman who we used to work with

back in the day at the shop.

And we got married kind of in a blackout.

Like I proposed in a black,

like I wasn't really trying to propose,

but it got taken that way.

And I was a little too much of a wuss to say anything.

So, you know, it's just like that kind of lifestyle I lived.

I was like, you know what?

Sure, let's get married and we'll give it a shot.

And I wound up going, getting married

and staying married for five years

to someone who like I didn't really intend to propose to

in the first place, not her, nothing against her.

Just, I mean, it's the kind of person I was.

And so I got married young and just drank my way

through that marriage.

Like I just, I was a manipulator and a gaslighter,

just hiding alcohol and just this really,

really dark point in my life.

And what happened to me was she'd had enough.

She called my cousin, my cousin came to my house.

This was about a year and a half into our marriage.

My cousin came to my house.

He said, you know, your wife's gonna leave you

if you don't stop drinking.

I was like, oop.

And then he said something interesting.

He said, and when she does,

I'm gonna make sure that she gets all your stuff.

And I was like, all right, cool.

Like let's go get sober.

Again, this just kind of tells you

the kind of person I was, not that like nothing about her.

This tells you that to me,

the important things were stuff and not people.

And the very interesting thing was I didn't have,

I mean, at that point in my life,

I didn't have any stuff to take.

It was dark times.

Like she would have kept debt, a beaten up car,

you know, a bunch of stuff stuffed in a garage.

So there was nothing much to keep,

but it was enough to get me to pack a bag.

And he told her we were going to a rehab.

He was gonna take me to a rehab and I get in his truck

and I got my bag pack and he goes,

we're not going to rehab.

I'm taking you to Glamis.

We're gonna go ride dirt bikes for six days

and have a great time.

I was a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. vodka out of the bottle drinker.

I would drink until I passed out

and I would wake up and I'd do it again.

This was going on for like three years.

And we went out to the desert and I sat in the trailer.

I didn't ride any dirt bikes.

I shook in the back of the trailer for six days and detoxed.

It was absolutely miserable and he is a bad person

who should have taken me to the hospital.

But at the same time, he saved my life, right?

That was the longest I had been sober since I started

drinking and using.

Six days, never done that before.

And I came back kind of on this like high horse of like,

and I got six days of sobriety.

Like everybody should show a little respect.

Especially my wife.

She should be very proud of me.

And I'd remembered that I promised her

that I'd go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

when I got back from this sabbatical.

And I had never been to Alcoholics Anonymous before.

I knew nothing about it.

I've heard about it.

I joked with friends that like,

"Oh yeah, I know I'm an alcoholic."

Like, you know, you kind of say those things

but never with that depth and weight of when I say it now.

And so it was a Saturday I got home.

A Saturday morning we got back.

And I told her I'd go to this meeting.

So I found an AA meeting.

It was a Saturday night meeting at the St. Luke's Church

on Canoga and Ventura.

And I said I just got to make it over to this meeting, right?

Like, cool.

I've been sober six days.

I just got to make it over to this meeting.

And it was like a seven o'clock meeting maybe.

I don't know.

At five o'clock I thought,

well I should leave a little early

'cause I don't know where I'm going.

I'm not quite sure.

Maybe I need to suss the meeting out before I actually go in.

And I got in my truck and I started heading that direction.

And I found myself in the parking lot of the liquor store

that I went to every morning at seven a.m.

And I sat in my car and thought,

well, you know what, no, let's just go to the meeting.

I sat and then I thought, you know what,

maybe I'll just buy a bottle and take it with me.

And if I don't like the meeting,

then I can go back to do what I was doing.

And I walked inside and I bought three airplane bottle,

little three vodkas 'cause those are easily transportable.

And I thought, well, this is perfect.

I'll just take these with me if I don't like it.

And then next thing you know,

I'm standing there outside my car

in the parking lot of the liquor store,

finishing the third bottle.

And that was, I mean, for me, that was my moment of clarity.

I looked up and I was like,

oh my God, I can't do this by myself.

I can't not drink given the opportunity.

So I drove down to that meeting

and raised my hand as an alcoholic

when they asked if there were any alcoholics,

if there were any new people.

I don't know why I raised my hand

and said I was an alcoholic.

I'd never done it before at that capacity,

but I did and I started crying.

And everyone clapped for me.

And after the meeting, everyone came and gave me a hug.

And I got a bunch of business cards

and toss those in the trash on my way out of the meeting.

But there was something about that meeting

'cause I thought I'd try it again on Sunday.

And I found another meeting on Sunday

and I went to that one and I found some love there.

And I went to a meeting on Monday

and I found some love there.

And I met a man who was like,

well, hey, I got this Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday.

And he's like, come meet me at all these meetings

and kind of introduced me to Alcoholics Anonymous.

He drugged me around.

And at that first week, I went to this Friday meeting

and a couple of guys that I'd seen

at some of the other meetings,

these two guys, they cornered me in the back of the room

and they're like, do you got a sponsor?

And I was like, no, I don't have a sponsor.

I was looking, I had heard about sponsor

when I first got here.

And again, a lot of financial problems.

So I was looking for the right sponsor.

I thought, I wasn't really sure,

but I thought a sponsor was like someone

who helps you get back on your feet, right?

Maybe someone who could loan me some cash

until I was doing a little bit better.

So I was looking for the guy who had the nice watch

and the nice car and some nice clothes on.

And unfortunately I didn't see him.

So I thought I'd kept going and try to find,

but they cornered me at the back of this Friday meeting

and they said, you're gonna find a sponsor tonight

or one of us is gonna sponsor you.

And I knew I didn't want either of those guys to sponsor me.

So I went back and I grabbed that man

who was dragging me around to meetings.

And funny enough, I know this now, I didn't know what that.

Very well off, he probably could have lent me some money.

But when I met like, as I've known him,

he's the most simple in his life.

He drives the same, at the time he drove

the same beat up old car, lives in a small apartment,

doesn't have any of the flashy things.

But man, when you see him always at the door

of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting,

he's always there at the door and he always has a handout.

He always had a big smile on his face

and he looked happy and comfortable.

And I think that's what I always wanted.

Maybe not the nice stuff.

And that's what really attracted me.

And so that man became my sponsor

and he took me through the steps

and introduced me to this thing, not by force.

He never told me like, you have to do this

and you have to do that.

He said, I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna be doing this.

Come with me if you want.

And whatever he was doing seemed to be working.

So I was like, all right, I'm gonna do all that.

I'm gonna try it.

And so I followed him around.

And at two years sober, I wound up getting divorced.

I cleaned out that garage and found a big book

that someone had came and talked to me about

when I was still drinking.

My ex-wife had had someone come

and I remembered it when I found that book.

Someone came to my house and pitched me Alcoholics Anonymous

and said, you might need this thing.

And I flashed back and I remember throwing the book

into the back of the garage and saying,

I'm not gonna need this.

And it's the big book I use today, right?

This big book that I found in my garage

that now has notes taken in it

of 14 years of going through the steps.

I belong to this Thursday night meeting

where we go through the steps.

Every couple of years, we get a hair up our butt

and we're like, hey, we're gonna redo the steps

and we do this 20 week step workshop and we go through it.

So I have all these notes in this big book

and I have this absolutely beautiful life today.

Just doing the things that you do

here in Alcoholics Anonymous, I wound up getting divorced.

I had some rough times, right?

Like they say, you get sober, life doesn't get amazing.

Life still happens and life happened really, really hard

at year two, year three, I get divorced.

I lose the house that I've been living in for nine years.

So I went from a three bedroom house with stuff

and family and blah, blah, blah.

And I have to move into a garage, a converted garage

and get rid of everything.

And then my dog dies and my mom dies

and then both my grandmothers die.

And like, just these things happen that are life, right?

The big one was of course, my mom passing away.

But I was sober when it happened.

She got to come and give me, in her last 10 months,

she got a very aggressive, rare form of cancer

and passed away within 10 months of receiving her diagnosis.

But I got to be there through that whole process.

And she got to come give me a cake

on my third year of sobriety.

I have this great photo on Sunday morning

of her giving me a cake, yeah, when I turned three.

And I got to be there by her side, right?

There were other family members that passed away

when I was drinking and I couldn't make it to funerals

'cause I was so drunk.

I was outside throwing up in the bushes or whatever

and I missed a lot of funerals.

So like, again, being able to be a member of my family

has been an absolute blessing.

But like I said, life happens and you still get through it.

She passed away on a Friday

and my feet took me to my Friday night men's stag

'cause that's why I knew where I needed to be.

And I was surrounded by the people who love me

and support me and I stayed sober through that.

And I stayed sober through the divorce.

And then great things happened, right?

I get remarried.

I meet my wife who spoke here last week.

And I normally don't talk about it,

but I'll briefly share about our meeting.

We met online.

I did not disclose that I was a sober member

of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And when she asked where we should meet,

she suggested this bar in downtown LA.

And I said, "Sure."

Not knowing anything about her, but when we meet

and her first order is, what is she ordered?

She ordered a shot of Jack Daniels

or a shot of Jameson and a beer.

And I ordered a Coke and she said,

"Oh, that's smart 'cause you gotta drive home."

And I said, "Yeah, yeah, that's it."

And then when she got her second shot of Jameson and beer

and I ordered my second Coke and some conversation later

and she said, "Wait a minute, you're sober, aren't you?"

Yeah, yeah, actually I am.

I wound up hitting it off that night.

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe not.

But she stuck around and later told me

that if my profile had said

that I was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous,

she wouldn't have gone on that first date with me.

And we've been married for,

well, we've been together over 10 years now.

And we have this beautiful life.

We have a three-year-old, as you all saw.

We are about two weeks away from another,

our second and final child.

But I have this beautiful life

and I owe it all to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have a sober household.

My family's all gone, so my brother's sober.

It's about the same amount of time as my wife.

My sister-in-law's sober.

I'm surrounded by Alcoholics Anonymous.

All my friends are sober.

I wanna thank my guys for coming out and supporting me.

I get the absolute honor of working with guys

who wanna work the steps, right?

I've worked with a lot of people that don't wanna do this.

And it's a pleasure to work with people who do

because they help keep me sober, right?

My sponsor is fantastic.

He helps keep me sober,

but the guys I work with really help keep me sober.

I absolutely love my life.

Thank Alcoholics Anonymous.

Thank my sponsor.

Thank you guys for having me out and thanks.