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 sure it's going to come out. I haven't shared my story in a while. It's such an honor to be asked

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 to speak at AA meeting. And I've had people when I first started coming around that were like the

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 secretary and a greeter, I thought they were like gods because I was just so afraid of people and

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 so afraid of myself. I had really, it was like the grease slide to hell for me. It was a nightmare

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 and I came to AA and things changed. I came upon my alcoholism and addiction honestly. I'm Irish.

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 My family was full of alcoholism. Either you were alcoholic or you're married alcoholic. And there

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 were people that were in AA and Al-Anon, which I sort of discovered later. My grandparents were

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 Irish immigrants. They had a significant history of trauma. My father's father was an alcoholic.

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 And again, if you're either alcoholic, you married alcoholic. So all that behavior and the drinking

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 and the whatever just normalized. It was normal. That's just sort of what you did. As a kid when I

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 first started drinking, people said, what are you doing this weekend? I'm drinking. It was like, it was a hobby.

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 You know, people played basketball and they did this together. What I was doing was drinking.

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 I did my first, I did my first geographic. I moved to the Virgin Islands after I finished

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 undergrad and college. And that's where I really hit my bottom, St. Thomas. Before that started,

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 I always saw myself having self-sabotaging behavior. I didn't understand why. I always spent

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 all the money. I would work really hard for money. I'd spend it all. I'd pick friends or whatever that

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 were abusive. I didn't understand that either. And I had a significant history of my own trauma as a

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 kid and sexual abuse and more than one occasion. And I had this horrible fear of people. So when

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 I first started walking into AA meetings in the fall of 1984, I went to open meetings or closed

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 meetings, but they were, they were just, they were regular meetings. I remember one time this guy handed

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 me a big book and said, read chapter five. And my first reaction was I recoiled. What's he want from

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 me? I was clueless. I had no idea he was doing 12 step work, but so the fall of 1984, I was 12 step

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 by my uncle at a kitchen table. It was like a classic AA 12 step. And I remember he told me,

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 he was 70 or so when they kept alcohol in the house for holidays. People came over,

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 they'd offer them a drink. And he said, he said, I realized that I had alcohol in the house. I could

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 take a drink and nobody knew. And I chose not to do that. And I was so blown away because I had so

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 so since lost the ability to stop drinking just once I started I'd start drinking. The joke was

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 like, you start partying with me on a Tuesday and you'd probably be home by Thursday. Cause once I

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 started, I just didn't stop and used other substances that which enabled me to drink more.

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 And that followed by the depression, the anxiety, you know, that sort of stuff. I was riddled with

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 it. So flash forward to fall of 1994. I stayed sober about six weeks and I was going to AA,

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 but I had that horrible fear of people. I'd go to the meeting, I'd stand in the back of the room

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 and they would do, in Boston, they would do an hour and a half meeting. They'd take a break

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 in between. They'd read the secretary's report. They do the seventh tradition and all that. And

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 I would just freeze because I was, again, so afraid of people. And, but wanting recovery,

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 wanting to be sober. I was desperate to be sober. And I drank from, it was Thanksgiving actually of

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 84. And I walked into gay meetings in downtown Boston and I felt like I was at home. Amazing.

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 You know, my remark, I was at a Christmas meeting here. I've only been in LA for a year and a half.

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 I was living in Thailand. So I've been sober since February 4th, 1985. And I so enjoyed the speaker

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 issues. I'm talking about living in the grace because with long-term sobriety, that's what you

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 come to. You can live in the grace. And I didn't call them situations anymore. It's just, just life.

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 And I don't react. And I'm able to take care of myself and self-care is huge. So again, I started

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 going to gay AA meetings in Boston and I made something happen. We're a fellowship of men and

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 women, and the fellowship is really what got me sober and kept me sober. Going up to people for

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 coffee or something to eat before the meeting, the meeting, going out for coffee or something to eat

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 after the meeting, people saying, where's your next meeting? And I had met a friend at my first

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 meeting. He said, I'll see you tomorrow night at this meeting. Then the next night was I'll see you

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 at this meeting. And I developed a network of friends in AA. And I was somebody that didn't

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 know how to have a friend, didn't know how to maintain friendships. I just, you know,

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 I just didn't have those skills and desperately wanted to have a friend. So my sobriety started

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 there and had good sponsor. I went to a lot of meetings. So I say, go stick your head in the

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 corner and stand on it. I would have done that because I started desperate and I wanted what

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 you people had. I remember going to this meeting on a Saturday morning in Boston, that's called

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 Old West Church. And there's a woman who was seven years sober. She was lesbian and she was full life

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 and laughter. And she said she was seven years sober. I thought, Oh my God, seven years sober,

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 which is beyond my comprehension. At that time, I think I was around 30 days and I would get those

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 chips. I feel so proud to get those chips. And I thought you can be seven years sober and laughing.

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 It's like, I wanted what she had. I bought it hook, line and sinker. I wanted recovery.

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 I remember going to her early in my sobriety, probably the first 90 days people were sharing

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 and they were talking about all this amazing stuff. And I'm like, what meetings do you guys

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 go to? Cause I wanted to go to any great meeting to learn. And they laughed. They said, we didn't

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 get, get this at a meeting. We get to treatment. I'm like, what's treatment. I think it was 90

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 days over the time. So I was past the point of even qualifying for treatment. This was back in

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 the eighties. There wasn't a lot of treatment around. People were talking about rehab and

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 treatment centers and it wasn't, I ain't going to rehab cute Amy Winehouse wasn't that kind of stuff.

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 So moving forward I would go to step meetings in the basement of a Catholic Church in Boston.

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 I had a sponsor. He'd go there. I'd meet him. We would re we would go to the 12 and 12 over

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 and over and over again. And I couldn't tell you none of that sunk in. I remember the John

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 Bollingcorn. I remember some of the phrases and that sort of stuff, but I had no idea what people

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 were talking about. Like I couldn't get it from my head into my heart. And back then in Boston,

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 when you get your early sobriety, they said, don't go running into doing the steps. Like somehow you

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 would get drunk by doing the steps, particularly a four step. People are a lot of fear around that.

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 And so I went to open meetings, speaker meetings, and that sort of thing, speaker discussion

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 meetings. And then I joined what was called the AWOL. It stands for a way of life. And when there's

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 a group of guys get together and you methodically go through the 12 steps, everyone knows their

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 four step together. I mean, you know, in their, in their own way that does a fifth step together,

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 not with each other, but they find something to do a fifth step with this core. He was a Franciscan

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 friar in Boston. Everybody went to him for the fifth step. I felt so bad for him because it was

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 just sort of, I guess it was his gift. You know, he had a gift gift for he was in recovery and he

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 had a, he had a gift for it, but at the same time for doing like 13 guys, we're all ready to find

81
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 brother Fred for our fist step. And I, I cleaned up a lot. A lot of shame, you know, even as a

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 little kid, four years old, they couldn't look people in the eyes. I was so full of shame. People

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 would say my name, my trim red. I thought about this. It's whatever. I don't even know if it's

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 appropriate, but Jewish guilt means your behavior is wrong. Catholic guilt means you're wrong. So I

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 was like wrong to my core. Like there was people talking about having low self-esteem. I had no

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 self-esteem, nothing. I was like hanging on to nothing. I was embarrassed to be alive. And on

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 the outside, things looked okay. I went to a decent college, barely graduated, but I did

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 graduate. I looked a certain way. So I'd get attention for that. None of it, none of it came

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 from the inside. I was always looking for outside sources to put inside needs, people, places, and

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 things. I was a year and a half sober. They said no relationships the first year. So no relationship

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 for me. I wouldn't date an AA. I was like, I don't want to spoil. I never, I don't want to be

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 in a disaster of a relationship, have things go sideways. And I couldn't go to a meeting because

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 he was there, you know, and everyone wanted that. So I stayed clear of dating in the program,

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 but I did meet somebody and I felt hopelessly in love. And at one point early on the relationship,

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 he said, do you need to understand something? I'm going to put as little energy into this

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 relationship as possible. And I was like, sign me up. I was a codependent, sign me up. I can

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 make this person love me. And we were on and off together for 11 years. But one of the beautiful

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 things that happened in that relationship, I was just so devastated when it ended each time that

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 I landed in Al-Anon and Al-Anon really showed me how to live, you know, because it wasn't about

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 the drinking and drugging. It was about living and how to negotiate, having feelings and being

101
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 identified feelings. People would say, how are you? And I'd be like, I'm great. I'd be dying on

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 the inside because I thought nice people are really angry. People said, how are you feeling?

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 I was in a rage on the inside, but nice people don't get angry. So I couldn't tell you that I

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 was angry. So there was not much, I was like this two dimensional person and I got a lot of Al-Anon

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 someone gently took me aside as they do an Al-Anon and they said, you're codependent. I'm like,

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 what's codependent. So I went into treatment actually at seven years sober for anxiety,

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 depression, and codependency. And I was shameful and you want to put me on medication. I was like,

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 oh no, you know, you just don't do that. And they educated me and I started getting help for

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 my depression and continuing CODA. I often say I've been in multiple 12 step programs as the

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 issues came up and I couldn't solve them in AA. I just went where I was supposed to go. Years of

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 therapy, years of psychiatry, years of sponsorship. And I often say it takes a village to raise an

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 idiot. And that's just been my experience. I've had to get my help from a variety of resources.

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 AA doesn't solve everything, but it gives you a platform that you can look at some of the other

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 outside issues and get the help that you need. I have an amazing sponsor. We've known each other

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 for 37 years in February at a time. So I have 36 years. He's known me for 36 years. The only

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 one became my sponsor about 15 years ago. We really sponsor each other. He's 46 years old.

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 And we really sponsor each other as far as just checking in five or six times a week and just

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 presenting our stuff. And if I get stuck working steps, I'm like, what do you think about this?

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 And what have you? The steps are beautiful. I guess it's something, I mean, I love the preamble.

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 I love a vision for you. Sometimes I listen to you, just reading it all emotional because it's

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 a program of a week for this self-centered alcoholic, narcissistic alcoholic being part

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 of a week. It's like, I want to be part of weed my whole life. And so when someone says, you know,

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 in the closing of the meeting, say the serenity prayer, I said that we did the leave version of

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 serenity prayer. Cause again, it goes back to the fellowship of men and women, the things I like,

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 and that's sustaining our meetings. First of all, doing 12 step work. I'm not the best sponsor,

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 but I'm great at other things in Boston. When I got sober, they'd say you have to do the ABCs,

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 which meant ashtrays, brooms, and chairs. So I've done a lot of that. And I've been a GSR. I've done

128
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 a lot of soda, that outside stuff, but I'm not a sponsorship. I guess I need to know if I want to

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 do it. I try to do it. And I would like to have that relationship. So I'm adding inside and do

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 intimacy or whatever, but other people are really highly skilled in that area. I miss that class.

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 Oh, what else can I say? So when I'm on the beam, I have an app on my phone and it starts with

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 unawakening from pages 86 to 88, which is an amazing read. And then it's the serenity prayer,

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 the six step prayer, the seven step prayer, third step prayer, St. Francis prayer, then a reading

134
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 by Thomas Merton. And I do read that regularly. I've been kind of backsliding recently with that,

135
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 with my mindfulness and meditation. I get caught up with life, I get caught up with work, whatever.

136
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 It's so easy. I get distracted. I have ADD. I get distracted. Everything squirrel, you know,

137
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 bright and shiny object. So I have to take a lot of sort of energy to stay focused. I turned out

138
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 to be an amazing man, not blowing my own horn, but just sort of like I'm integrated as a person,

139
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 you know, I didn't, they said that, you know, alcoholism was a spiritual mental and physical

140
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 disease. I understood the physical part for years. Cause I was, I had to drink. I didn't

141
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 understand the spiritual part of it. I was spiritually bankrupt when I got here. I had no

142
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 sense of spirituality. I grew up in a religious home, but there was no spirituality. It was all

143
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 about, you kneel here, they ring the bells here. And then you say this prayer and that prayer,

144
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 but none of it, none of it made sense to me. And I remember looking up the cross

145
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 as a Catholic church at the age of five saying, I want nothing to do with you. I was five.

146
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 And it was true. I just sort of, you know, that was it for me, but the spiritual part of the

147
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 program, when it came to me, the person that said, I'll meet you at meetings at the beginning,

148
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 I'll meet you this night. I'll meet you that night. My car broke down in downtown Boston and

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 it was like a, it was a clunker and I walked and cracked the head of the car. It was an old Peugeot.

150
00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:09,920
 It was very, very cool. And I walked in and cracked the head and cause the fan stopped

151
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:16,880
 working and the whole thing overheated and I kept driving. So I had to stay with him for two weeks,

152
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 my friend, and at nighttime he'd get down, he'd kneel and say his prayers. I'm like,

153
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 what are you doing? He said, you know, saying more prayers and saying the third step prayer.

154
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 I'm like, what's that? And we set it together. And then from there I was struck with spirituality.

155
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 I just, it was, you know, I can still remember right now, I get emotional just thinking about it.

156
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 I got in it. It was just like, there is something outside of me that wants me well,

157
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 that will take care of me. My whole life I was looking for something to take care of me,

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 just through the mental illness in the family and the addiction. And my mother had a very

159
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 severe form of arthritis. That was the active disease in the house. And it's like many of us,

160
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 I didn't get what I needed as a kid. Oh my God. Oh my God. I wasn't prepared for this.

161
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:10,000
 Yeah. I'm not going to be able to go all the way, just half measures to bail me,

162
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 not sure, but I'm standing at the turning point. So if you think you have a drinking problem,

163
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 AA is a beautiful way of life and we can help you get a sponsor, do what you're told,

164
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 not your version of AA, not California sober, do it as it's laid out. And people that do it

165
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 have great success and are happy, joyous, and free. And there's a poem called the desert

166
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 erotic where it talks about wearing life like a loose garment. And I really liked that and it

167
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 stuck with me. And that's kind of how I wear my recovery. It's means everything to me. And I'm

168
00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:44,720
 able to pass it on, but I don't demand that people get sober. I don't demand that people listen to

169
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 what I have to say. I just sort of share my experience, strength, and hope in a gentle way

170
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 and lead by a power of example. I got a very difficult phone call. Let me back it up Monday.

171
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 I have a niece she's 34 years old and she left college suddenly enjoying the national guard.

172
00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:04,800
 I found out later that she was raped in college. So obviously the trauma and she had even as a kid,

173
00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:10,240
 she had an anxiety disorder. So often Iraq, she goes to two tours of duty and then she did a tour

174
00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:15,600
 duty in Afghanistan and some really bad things happened to her. I don't know the details. And

175
00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:19,840
 her drinking just took off again. It's all of, you know, family disease. It's all over my family,

176
00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:25,040
 anxiety, depression, alcoholism. So I put her, I've been, I've put her in treatment,

177
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:29,040
 three different treatment centers over the years, say in the past 10 years. And she got some really

178
00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:34,160
 good care. Um, but she was really a tortured soul with the anxiety and the trauma and even getting

179
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 good care. She wasn't able to rise above it, but she had a year, year and three months sober. And

180
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 I believe in messages from her for three years. Just thinking about you, how you go and give me

181
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 a call and like crickets and we have a tight family. So I've never pushed the issue. Um,

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 I've never checked in to say, you know, like the sobriety, please, what are you doing? You

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 need to be doing this or that. I just am able to listen to people today and just be present, um,

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 which is a gift in itself. So she started sending me texts was four o'clock in the morning our time.

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 So it must've been seven o'clock on the East coast. Um, and she started going to memory lane,

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 thanking me for this. And I'm like, God, you did this. You did that. And I'm like,

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 no, I'm so sorry. Threw up on your carpet. She was 10 years old and I took them out to dinner

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 at a show or something and brand new carpet league. Don't you came in and like, you go over the place

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 and, um, I wasn't really happy about at the time, but what do you say to a 10 year old? So she

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 apologized for that. And I found it really funny. I'm like, can't believe you can remember that. Um,

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 I immediately got off the fence. I had the sixth sense that she wasn't okay. She was telling me

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 things were good and she's going to get married and she can do all the stuff. She met a nice guy

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 in AA and they were doing really well together. And she's studying to be a peer counselor. I had

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 the sixth sense that it all sounded too good. And the memory lane thing just really triggered me.

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 And I'm thinking this isn't, this doesn't match up. So I immediately called her sister. And then

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 my sister was like a second mother to her and saying, you need to keep an eye on Emily. Um,

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 I don't think she's doing well. And they reached out to her and of course she's saying she's doing

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 well and what have you. And I'm going to call last night about 11 o'clock saying she relapsed

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 on Monday on alcohol. And she died last night from alcohol poisoning. My family I'm devastated.

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 My family is I'm in shock. My family is devastated. She really wanted it. And it is a gift. It's an

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 unmerited gift. There's no reason why she'll be sitting here with over 30 years of sobriety when

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 there's other people that may have worked even harder than I did to maintain the sobriety and

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 get sobriety. We don't always have a choice about, you know, when you have, for me, when

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 having time, I just assume I'm going to be sober and there's no assuming it's a disease. Um, so I'm

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 very grateful to be here. Very grateful that I have a friend in Scott and he asked me to speak

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 in a meeting. I'm supposed to be here. It was the last week and something came up and I completely,

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 um, wasn't able to do it. So I'm very grateful to be here tonight. Thanks so much for listening.

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 Okay. She showed me what I feel so long.