Robert's Journey: From Early Drinking to Recovery

I got all the love.

My name's Robert Baker, and I am an alcoholic.

My third 2010 semester of writing days.

So I've got 15 years, and I'm coming up on a birthday

soon.

Hello.

I drank like there was no tomorrow.

I started drinking in high school.

I graduated in 1977.

And I used to siphon off my dad's homemade wine

and put it in a jug.

And we'd drive around, and my friends and I would drink that.

Shortly after that, I joined the Navy,

and I was there for two years, six months, and 28 days

in San Diego.

And I stayed in San Diego for a while.

And I started drinking there.

I went back to New Mexico where I'm from, a little town

called Hodge, New Mexico.

I don't advise going there.

It's just in the middle of the oil field.

They'll put you to work.

And I always tried to, and I did this for over 25 years,

work in places where I could drink and eat for free.

So I would always be working in a restaurant somewhere

that was like in direct competition with the country

club because they were better kippers,

and they had top shelf liquor.

And that's what I did in that little town for a good 10

years.

And that's where I got my first DUI.

The judge at the time, I think, was about 84 years old.

He looked like the crit keeper.

And he put me in jail, made me go to a class.

And he said after a year, it would

be dropped off my record.

OK, that sounded good to me.

I took care of business, and I did that.

And 1981 hit, and I turned 21.

My friends drove me up to the end of the mountain guides

in Ruidosa, New Mexico.

And I remember there were two bottles of Crown Royal.

There was a bottle of Jack Daniels.

There was a bottle of Jim Beam.

And I had a bottle of Crown for myself

and half the bottle of Jim Beam.

And I don't remember anything about going up there.

I don't remember anything about really being there

at the hotel or anywhere.

I remember the next morning, I thought I was dead.

I was laying face down on this perfect green carpet.

And there were clouds all around me.

We were high in the mountains.

And I couldn't see the hotel.

And I thought, I'm dead.

I know I'm dead.

And the clouds raised a little bit.

I saw a lake, and I saw some geese out there in the water.

And I was like--

and I still-- it was awful.

And then the sun started coming up.

And I said, something's happening here.

Maybe I'm not so dead.

And all of a sudden, the sun came out,

and I looked over at the hotel.

And actually, the moon came up, because all my friends

were mooning me through the window.

That's the only thing that I remember from that time.

And we were up there for three days.

Six years later, it was New Year's Eve.

And I had worked a long shift in the restaurant,

went down to the honky-tonk.

There was, I think, Kitty Wells was singing that night.

There was all-- and Waylon Jennings.

And I watched them for a while.

And I had three Jack and Cokes.

It tasted like Jack and Coke.

They were making them, like, triple strong for me.

And I might have had three.

Then I had that last one for the road.

And it's 15 miles back to town from where the High Lonesome

was.

And they gave me a full glass to go.

Put it on the dashboard, and put my car in reverse.

And my friend said that my car spun

around for about a minute and a half in the parking lot,

in this gravel parking lot.

No other cars were there.

It was 4 o'clock in the morning.

And I woke up and realized what had happened.

I had spilled my drink all over myself.

I was really pissed.

Broke down the drive and took off down the highway.

And I get about five miles down the road

and realize I'm on the wrong side of a two-lane double

highway.

There was nobody out at 4 in the morning.

And that was a good thing.

I went out on the other side, got into town,

stopped at all the lights.

I drove fine.

The police were behind me from the time

that I had gotten right into town

and passed that first light.

And they said I drove fine, except I

slowed through a stop sign about a block from my house.

So they decided to pull me over in front of my house.

They had their lights on for about a block.

I didn't see them, maybe two blocks.

And I parked perfect in front of my house.

But I poured myself out of the car.

I crawled all the way up the walkway to my house.

And they put the handcuffs on me as I'm

putting the key in the door.

And I said, all I want is an aspirin.

And they took me to jail.

And that was an absolute mess.

That was eight years later.

And the same cryptkeeper gave me time to do community service.

I decided I'm leaving town.

And I came out to Los Angeles when I was 29,

almost 40 years ago.

I met a guy that I stayed with in Palm Springs.

And I ran a gay hotel with 26 rooms.

And it was just one big party.

I hardly remember anything about being in Palm Springs

because we had a lot of nose candy, a lot of it.

I only did crystal meth once for 10 years.

I remember when my dad passed away in '93,

I went back for his funeral.

And I got another DUI in my hometown

by a guy that I used to go to high school with,

driving a turquoise Impala, 1970 Impala, in '93.

And he said that he didn't like the way I was driving

and that I talked too much.

So he took me to jail.

And the same judge, all those years later,

put me in county, gave me a year in county

and 180 hours of community service, an $1,800 fine,

six psychiatric evaluations, and a five-year probationary

period in New Mexico not to drive.

They came and got me out of jail after I'd done seven days.

I did the psychiatric evaluations.

And the guy says, why don't you just go back?

I said, I got family out here.

So I did everything I was supposed to do.

I did my timeline.

And then I came back to California.

At that time, my ex was dying.

And all my friends in the late '80s and through the '90s

were dying like crazy.

It was the saddest time of my life.

And I met my partner now, Robert--

his name is also Robert--

in '94, April of '94.

In fact, in a week, we'll be together for 32 years.

I had been--

I stopped doing drugs at that time.

But I kept drinking because it was the fun thing to do.

So for 15 years of that relationship, I drank.

I drank heavy.

They have pictures of me all over the world

on ships in nice restaurants with my face down

in food, asleep.

I've-- absolutely.

Very classy.

Very classy.

Just an absolute mess.

And I went to get my driver's license one day.

Well, I don't remember anything about being

anywhere in the world.

I have lots of pictures.

And we've been all over the world.

We're in all different countries and all kinds of places.

'94, around '99, I went to go get my driver's license renewed.

And I've been in California for a long time.

And they said, Mr. Baker, you have a red flag

on your card from New Mexico.

Oh, I take that back.

I didn't have it that time.

But it did happen.

It just happened after I got sober.

I got sober in 2010 after I tried

to set the house on fire when I--

all I did was take a muscle relaxer

and drink half a bottle of vodka and try

to cook dinner at the same time.

If this would work, you always burn the house down.

So my partner was really upset with me

and didn't like that I was drinking so much.

I used to come down the hill from Universal Studios.

Excuse me.

Used to work there too.

Elysian Park, where Dyer Stadium is.

And every single day at 2.30, we'd get off work.

And I'd come down and get a couple of beers

and drive home to the valley.

And I did that for years and drank a lot of vodka.

When I finally, 2010, had my last drink,

it was a regular July 2nd.

And I'd asked myself, do I have enough medicine

for the weekend?

And it was going to be July 4th weekend.

So I went to Costco, and I got a big bottle of sky vodka

because it had the pint cooked to it for free.

And it was $19.99.

And in the grocery store, sky vodka was $30.

So if you bought three bottles, it's

almost like getting one for free.

So Costco was good for me for a long time.

But that day, I literally was throwing up in my sink.

And I looked out the window, and I asked God.

I said, God, is this the last drink I have to take?

And I was throwing up, trying to take some in, throwing up,

trying to take some in.

Finally got some vodka in, and it stayed.

And I drank that whole bottle in about an hour and a half.

It didn't hit me.

I drank myself sober.

It didn't work.

And Robert came home that night.

We went out to dinner.

I had a couple of cocktails at dinner.

We went to theater.

And during that time, it all hit me at the same time.

I thought there were 20 guys in line.

I had to pee, so I peed.

I was wearing khakis, and I'm in the middle of the lobby.

And I just put my coat in front of me like I always should.

And I couldn't wait on those 20 guys.

So I went out behind the theater.

And the door closed behind me, so I locked myself in the alley.

Staggered around to the front.

I couldn't figure out which theater to get back into.

There's only one theater on Lancashire Boulevard.

It's the Portale.

And I fell, and I'm laying there in beautiful clothes,

peed all over myself, watching the water go by on Lancashire

Boulevard.

God kicked my ass to the curb that night.

And up to that point, that was my life,

just an absolute mess, one mess after another.

And Robert was done.

He got a call from six women who the paramedics called

from my phone.

And they came down to the hospital to be with me.

And they called him to come down there,

because that's where I was, just with a 0.42 blood alcohol.

I would have died that night if I hadn't gone to the hospital.

Everybody was pissed at me.

They were done.

Everybody was done.

Robert went home, and he started packing.

And somewhere around 2 o'clock in the morning,

I was pulling all the needles out of me,

because I was ready to go home.

I said, where's my phone?

What's going on here?

Why am I here?

I'm ready to go home.

They said, no, you have to lay back down.

I said, no.

Am I arrested?

OK, then I'm going home.

And Robert came and picked me up.

And he just said, he's done.

And I said, well, I will call my friend in the morning.

And something happened to me the next day.

I called my buddy Kenny, who I'd known for 15 years.

And anybody that ever come over to our house for a party,

I always made them a drink.

I didn't realize, even for 15 years, that he did not drink.

And every single person that came into my house

always got a drink, didn't matter what they wanted,

that they got the drink of the day.

He always put it away, gave it to somebody else, whatever.

I was very selfish.

I had had a dream for over eight years.

And I dreamed that I'm riding in a vehicle

without a front end hood.

And we're parked next to a--

we're driving along, and we park under a tree

next to a blue fence.

And there's kids' play equipment.

And there's a bicycle tied to a light post down the street.

And I turn, and there's a dark figure,

who I always thought was death, and a wall

crosses behind this dark figure.

And I had that dream many times over eight or nine years

before that night.

And I always would drink more because I didn't

want death to come and get me.

And that was my justification to drink more.

But when my friend Kenny came to get me the next day,

I'm driving along with him.

And I realize I'm in a vehicle that

doesn't have a front end because we're in a van.

We park under a tree next to a blue fence.

And there's play equipment in the backyard.

And there's a bicycle tied to the light post down the street.

And there's a wall crosses.

And I know I'm not asleep.

I'm wide awake.

And I start crying.

And I look over because I knew I was going to die right then.

That's where my head was.

And it's my friend Kenny, my Eskimo.

I had a deja vu and spiritual experience all at the same time.

My first time that I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous

because he took me to the Comercio meeting

on Saturday night, which is being lived there tonight.

And that's when they gave me my book.

And I didn't want a book.

And I didn't want to know you.

And I didn't want to know him in that way.

I didn't want to read a book.

I didn't want to know what's in this book.

So I said, thank you for the book.

Thank you so much for the book.

Signed their name in it.

They put telephone numbers in it.

I was like, thank you for reading it for the book.

And I took it home.

And I realized that the night before, I had said,

God, this is the last drink I have to have.

God kicked my ass with a curb.

I had a 0.4 blood alcohol.

And I'm alive.

And my dream came true.

I'm an emotional alcoholic.

And every time I get emotional, I

know that this thing is working for me because it's real.

It hits my heart every single time.

I said, OK, God, if you want me here, I opened up the book.

And I said, I need a sign.

I had the audacity to ask God for a sign.

Under my finger, I read, nothing, absolutely nothing

happened to God's role in my mistake.

That's the first time I'd heard that.

That's the first time I'd read it ever.

But I thought it was a pretty good sign.

So I said, OK, I'll stick around for a year.

And in that year, I met a lot of people.

I did a lot of meetings.

I have seven of these little booklets.

And I also read my book.

In fact, my book is falling apart.

It's all written through.

It's all marked up like crazy.

The whole front end is a supplement

to the rest of the book.

But I wrote down, because that's the way my brain is,

every meeting that I ever went to for the first year

in seven of these books, who led it, what the topic was,

where it was, telephone numbers, and people that are still

in my life today, and I know what day I met them on.

I can't remember people's names hardly at all anymore.

Because eight years-- it's 11 years now--

I had a stroke at podium.

But during that first year, I had

to renew my driver's license.

And they said, Mr. Baker, you have

a red flag on your license.

And I said, what do I do?

We'll call New Mexico.

So I called.

And this little woman named Nadine said, May Hagen.

And I said, well, I've got this thing that happened.

I had-- I needed to renew my driver's license.

And she goes, well, it looks like you had your third DUI

sometime back-- your second DUI sometime back,

but you never finished everything.

You were supposed to put an interlock system on your car

and pay $250.

And now it's over $3,000.

It's been years.

But you still have to do it, because we're not

going to release it.

And I said, I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm doing the program.

I'm in the fellowship.

And she goes, you're in recovery, honey?

And then I remembered.

I graduated with Nadine in high school in 1977.

So we started talking about pubs.

My mother was an alcoholic.

And I said, do you go to the Tumbleweed Club?

And she said, sure.

I said, my mother started that meeting.

She goes, this is what I want you to do.

And this is where I know that the fellowship is

bigger than my backyard.

She goes, you call this guy in Santa Fe.

You're telling your story and everything.

And let him know, and he'll be able to take care of this

for you.

So I called him.

I told him who I was.

I told him I had the DUI.

I've got this.

I've got this problem.

And he goes, well, you've still got a interlock system

on your car.

You've got to pay the $3,000.

And I said, well, Nadine's sick.

He goes, you know Nadine?

He goes, why didn't you leave with that?

I said, I'm in recovery.

You're in recovery?

He said, that's a wonderful thing.

Because I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do.

I'm going to release this for you,

and you're going to have to pay the original $200,

but you don't have to put the interlock system on your car.

So I know that the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous

is not only a wonderful, safe place,

but it's also a network of people

that help each other in all the same way they can,

which absolutely blows me away.

I got to go with my buddy Don Crandall

to the International Convention in Atlanta in 2015.

I traveled with him all kinds of different places.

We'd get in the car and go to Saddlebarber on a Tuesday,

go to a dive meeting where there's only like five people

and two of them are us.

And then we'd go to Joe's Cafe and have lunch,

and we'd come back.

And one time he wanted to go up to Hesperia,

and I said, "Why on God's green earth

would anybody go to Hesperia?"

He goes, "Well, I'm going to go up there and I'm going to speak

and I want you to be there with me."

OK.

So we go and we go to lunch, and I met this woman, Kathy,

and she had about 47 years of sobriety at the time.

I reached my hand out, and she goes, "No, no, no, honey.

That's not the way to do it.

We give hugs."

She gave me that unselfish AA hug

that broke down every wall inside me.

Somewhere around my second or third year,

and I still have walls up.

That's when I started getting commitments

and welcoming people into the Fellowship of Alcoholics

Anonymous by standing at the door.

People would come up, "Oh, God, he's a hugger."

So I learned real quick who to hug and who not to hug.

Welcome.

But I've had a lot of fun with it.

Crandall took me up to Canada, all the way to the very top.

It was snowing sideways.

And about 20 degrees below zero, and a guy up there,

Cecil Corrigal, he is gone now, had 60 years of sobriety.

And he had had a stroke, and it was difficult to understand

what he was saying, but when he would

talk about the big buck of Alcoholics Anonymous,

it was as clear as a bell.

At his birthday, he got up at the podium,

and it was like he didn't mess up the beat,

because he'd done that story so many times in every province.

And if you look up Cecil C. 1984,

you'll find him speaking here at the International Convention

in Los Angeles.

Hilarious guy.

But he was a very big stickler about the big buck coming in,

sitting on sofas in his meeting room,

because that's how it started in people's living

rooms, sitting on a sofa.

So there were only sofas in that room.

But everybody in there had a big buck.

That was the thing.

You had to have your big buck.

And I noticed all you guys came around and shook my hand today.

Everybody walked around the room and shook everybody's hand

every single time.

And his big proponent was the manual

for this thing between your ears.

It's page 84 to 88.

And 84 to 88 is supposed to be read every day.

And you do your step 10 every day.

And I did that for a very long time.

And when I stopped doing it, I have a forgetter.

And the simple instructions that show us what to do

and tell us how to do it and what's on those pages

left me for a little while.

And when I read it on a regular basis

or I listen to it on an app, if somebody else read it to me

while I'm driving, I remember.

And it helps me, especially now that I've had that stroke too.

It's such an important tool to have

those four pages of instructions how to live our lives.

I wish more people outside of the fellowship

of Alcoholics Anonymous had those pages.

I also learned from Crandall that any time you take a cake,

any time you speak from the podium,

any time you lead a meeting, you wear a coat and tie.

And I think it was about seven months into my sobriety,

my friend Jeff sent me down to a speaker meeting

with a buddy of mine, Adam, from down in the city of industry.

And I spoke, really didn't know what I was saying.

I didn't have a lot of information,

but I gave my experience, strength, and hope

for that seven months.

And some people came up and shook my hand.

Well, I liked it.

And I thought, well, I'm going to be the tie guy,

and I'm going to wear all kinds of crazy ties

as if any of you alcoholics out there and some of you drunks

would even realize that I had a tie on in the first place.

I went out and I bought dead guy ties.

I went to garage sales.

I went to all kinds of places to get ties.

So within about six or seven months, I had about 500 ties.

I didn't get asked to speak or leave

a meeting for almost three years.

And I realized that when I finally was asked again,

I had studied my book, and I got humble.

I truly got humble with myself and realized I'm the problem.

And I've been trying to give away these ties every year.

I still have so many different ties.

I might have another 200 to go, and I've got ties.

So if anybody needs a tie for when

you are going to be leading a meeting,

speaking somewhere else, please come up and take a tie.

Much more fun, by the way.

I thought that was one of mine.

Oh, and my buddy here, he wore his tie

that he got three years ago.

Texted me and said, I'm going to wear your tie,

and I want you to give me a birthday cake.

So he's got his tie.

When I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous,

there was a group of women in the Valley Club who said,

welcome.

You've landed in your family of understanding.

Your poem.

I remember their names.

I can see their faces today.

I'm in contact with a few of them still.

And one of them has passed on.

Those women became an intricate part of my sobriety

for the first several years.

And being who I am and where I'm from,

I was afraid I was somebody else who was going to hurt me.

And I've always been afraid of letting anybody

know very much more about me.

I go to three different men's stags, one of them

on a regular basis that I've been going

to for the last three years, and being with those men

and brothers of understanding.

It has made such a difference in my life

to be able to be a true friend and a true brother

to other men in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And to be able to give something back

that was given me so freely.

I know for a fact that I'd be dead right now.

I've been a caretaker for my husband Robert

for the last seven years.

He's been on whole hemodialysis, first four years

in the kitchen in a chair.

And then we were able to get him a nocturnal set up

for the last three years.

And this last December, he got a new kidney.

And he's been on anti-rejection drugs.

And about 20 days ago, he got sepsis

and has been in the hospital.

He's been home for about seven days now.

And we're doing three-hour shifts of IV antibiotics

three times a day.

And it's been tough.

We've got nine more days of that to go.

But I was put here for a reason, to be of service.

And if you don't know what the ABCs, A, B, and C really

means in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous,

in the back there of a portion of chapter five,

it's the ashtrays, the brooms, and the chairs.

And that's how we can participate

in our own sobriety, is to take care of our clubhouses,

take care of our meeting halls, and make sure

that the place is set up.

So when somebody walks through that door, like I did,

they're welcome with open arms.

And I just want to--

I can't say any more about the fellowship of Alcoholics

Anonymous, except when Don took me up to Canada,

and he had his 50th birthday.

About seven years later, we had a big party for him.

And eight or nine of those guys--

nine of them-- came down from Canada.

And after his big birthday bash with over 350 people,

they all came over to my house.

To be able to have met people in other countries,

other parts of the world, in places far away,

and still be close to them today in Alcoholics Anonymous

brings us all together.

And we're still in contact.

I cherish those relationships.

I cherish those friendships.

And the new friendships that I'm able to make today

have made a lot of difference in my life.

Thank you so much, Abraham, for having me out tonight.

Thank you, quality of life, for inviting me again.

And I really appreciate it.

You mean a lot to me.

Thank you.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]