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 Hi everybody. My name is Carter and I'm an alcoholic. I want you to notice the tie and

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 the coat that I haven't worn since COVID, and maybe before. And my first reaction when

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 I saw that goddamn, pardon me, I wore the coat and tie, but the language may not be

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 perfect. My first reaction was, "No, you can't make me wear a goddamn coat and tie." It's

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 like, "I hate him. I've had to wear him to work for a long time." But I decided, "Well,

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 maybe that'd be nice." It was actually kind of fun. I feel like I'm at Halloween. Why

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 did I come here outside of for my own sobriety to save my own ass, which I've been doing

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 now for almost 48 years. Can you believe that? I was really impressed with four days and

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 one day at a time things happened. But the big book says that the main purpose of this

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 book is to help us find a power connection to a power greater than ourselves that can

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 solve our problem. Not this problem or that problem, all our problems. That's hard to

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 really take. Where do we... Well, I'll tell you. Okay. Where do you find... Tomorrow I

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 just sent out, I teach a meditation on Sunday mornings now online. Actually, I love COVID

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 because I now sponsor people in Europe and Asia and all over America. Just sit down there,

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 put your feet up and click a few things and say, "Hi, there. How's it going?" I teach

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 meditation online and I send out this email. The email says, basically it says, "Where

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 do we find peace? Where do we find happiness? Where do we find joy? Where do we find feeling

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 okay? Where do we find self-esteem?" To talk about that, feeling okay about ourselves.

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 Where we find it is by stop, stop being thinking. In that stop, if we take a breath, you might

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 try it and you might not. I don't care. But take a breath. Just take a breath and just

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 drop thinking and just shift your attention to the warmth of your own heart. Then take

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 another breath and deepen it even to the connection of peace and power and love deep inside. That's

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 where the big book says we find it. Man, I spent a long time learning that goddamn lesson

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 because as a little kid growing up, I thought I learned that I was separate. I had a separate

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 body and a separate thing. Then because I was separate, I needed to find love and I

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 needed to figure out how to manipulate mommy and daddy so I could be okay and find love.

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 Daddy was in the Navy and disappeared and mommy was a good Navy wife and was unavailable.

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 She was like emotionally couldn't connect. She took care of me. Events happened in my

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 life that disturbed. When I was four, I lived ideally, actually. I think about that now.

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 I lived on a beach in Hawaii. All I had to do at four years old was put on a pair of

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 swimming trunks. We lived by a little stream. My brother would take me on his canoe rides

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 and his outrigger and I could search for shells and mommy was there. She'd fix me lunch and

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 dinner and dad would come home from his ship. He was in the Navy every day and give me a

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 ride on his shoulders. I was in happy land. Then you may guess my age now and then at

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 the age of four, idiot people in charge of governments decided to have a war with each

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 other and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and destroyed my happy little vision, my happy

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 little vision. I started not trusting this world. You got to watch out. The bombers may

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 come. Who knows what's going to happen? I started being scared of the world. Then later

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 on, I want to fast forward. I want to spend a lot of time on this, but came back to the

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 States. Actually had a good time and skipped the second grade, which was a terrible mistake

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 because I was very immature. Then I ended up in this city school and these city kids,

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 I was so naive. They were pushing me. They wanted to see what I was made of. They were

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 challenging me and they were scaring the hell out of me. There was a gang of them all ganging

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 up on me. I ran home crying to mommy and daddy. Dad said, "Don't be a wimp, Carter. Don't

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 be a chicken shit." Now I knew what I was, a chicken shit wimp. I also figured out pretty

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 early that it was a good idea not to let you know what I was. That started the whole game

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 of let's pretend to be something you aren't so that the people out there. I started suffering

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 from this delusion, the big book says, this delusion that in order to find rest, satisfaction

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 and happiness from life, I need to manage well. I need to manage what I look like.

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 I watched two idiots in my yard play that game. Now I'm true. It's like still trying

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 to manage through anger. I don't want to go through a whole lot of that. We moved around

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 some more. I grew bigger. I was smart. Like the lady that just talked, I was smart. I

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 had something going for me. I was smart. I skipped the second grade and I was smart.

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 As far as connecting man to man, as far as being a real man in this real world, I was

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 like, I don't want you to find out who I really am. I decided at some point that I was really

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 ugly too. I had this funny Adam's apple. I grew from this height to this height and overnight.

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 I was skinny and had these funny arms and legs. And, and so then I was supposed to ask

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 girls out, you know, and I knew, I knew that if I was a girl, I wouldn't want anything

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 to do with the skinny wimpy chicken shit, the ugly guy, you know, had the big fat lips

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 and this big Adam's apple on his ears. It stuck out. I knew no girl was, so I would

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 say, you don't want to go out with me. Do you? And she would agree. No, I go out with

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 you. Thereby proving that at least I was smart. I don't know whether I'd ever want to relive

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 that part. I sponsor some of these guys and they're busy getting laid at like 12 or something

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 or other and having a happy time. And, you know, and my approach, you know, it took forever,

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 you know, for me to, but I was smart. You know, I talk about that smart doesn't do a

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 goddamn thing for you being smart. You know, I, I was, I just realized I was accepted to

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 Harvard and to MIT at the age of 16. And I was talking to another guy and he was trying

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 to decide who's a very, very smart son. And he was trying to decide what school to go

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 to, you know, MIT or Caltech or Michigan. And he started writing in a little, little

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 list of which one was, wasn't he? And he was like writing down, he's going to figure it

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 out. He's going to figure out what schools to go to by the very best intellectual process.

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 And he got to the very bottom and he had made a decision and it was midnight or 11 o'clock

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 and he had to make a decision. And the guy from MIT called him up and said, Hey, you

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 want to go to school? He said, Oh, okay. You know, they sort of, we have suffered from

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 the delusion that we can figure things out with our mind. And even though maybe this

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 mind is pretty good at figuring out algebra and techniques and crap like that, but it's

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 worthless in figuring out whether I love you, whether I care about you, whether this is

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 the right thing to do, it's totally worthless. You know, I may meet my ego may decide I want

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 this and then my mind thinks, yeah, you should do it for this and this and this and this

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 and this reason. And then the other part of my mind says, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but

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 yeah, but yeah. And then I'm like crazy. And then I haven't talked about drinking, but

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 that's where drinking comes in. You're trying to figure it out and you're trying to figure

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 it out and try and figure it out and try and figure it out, try and figure it out. And

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 finally you say, I need an escape. You know, I really understand now why young girls trying

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 to figure out why nobody likes them at school will cut themselves because you know, I'd

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 rather feel the physical pain than the mental pain of my head. And that's where I was only

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 I didn't get into cutting myself. I did drive cars fast. You know, I never killed myself

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 driving a car, which some kids do, you know, or I did later on, put my fist through a wall

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 from just that stress, but drinking. Oh yeah. Oh, thank God. You know, I remember I got,

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 I did go to MIT and I was in this fraternity and I still didn't have a date. And because

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 the girls in Boston didn't like me any more than the girls in Seattle. And I said, you

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 don't want to go out with me. And I had a few, it's just a little what, but I'd had

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 a few beers, a couple of beers, I think, or something to drink. And I remember walking

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 into this room and there was a guy over there with this girl. Oh, you know, usually I would

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 feel, oh, I don't have a girl. They'll find out what an idiot I am. There was a guy over

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 there with his girl and with this alcohol in me, I thought, oh wow, bless you, my children.

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 You know that wonderful thing that sometimes we got when we first started drinking or using

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 or something. Oh yeah. It's all just wonderful. And the fact that, you know, a half an hour

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 or a couple of hours later, I'm upstairs, barking my guts out was a very small price

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 to pay for feeling okay. For feeling, feeling a connection, you know, what the alcohol does

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 is it shuts off this fucking head of mine that was just driving me nuts. And unlike

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 the other speaker, you know, when I went to, at least when I went to MIT, it was like,

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 okay, I got here now and I'm really smart. So I should get really good grades without

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 studying. And it turns out to be a very poor strategy. I got A's and F's and A's and

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 F's. And I finally, I did, you know, I went back and finally completed that and went back

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 to Seattle, which is where my, my father retired to. And so I hadn't found a girl though. I

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 was, I was like 21 years old and a virgin, but I'm speaking to Playboy and saying, oh

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 yeah, you know, trying to pretend to be okay. You know, that trying to pretend to be okay.

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 I'm jumping around, but I just, I see people with 10, 20, 30 years sobriety in this program,

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 still trying to pretend to be okay. You know, I'm trying to keep up the, you know, pretense.

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 You know, there was my wife just, she sponsored, there's a lovely black woman she sponsors

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 and, but that she's trying to pretend to be okay. You know, she threw a party for a hundred

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 people for her mother's 80th birthday. And then this big funeral for a mother actually,

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 but it was huge. And, and then she just got married all in white in Las Vegas to this

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 perfect, really good looking guy, except that he was total fake. And she just, she was married

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 for two months, married in June. That's right. And it lasted until a month ago, you know,

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 because it was all this illusion. If I can only just arrange the, you know, the actor,

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 see the actor part of the big book, you know, if I can only arrange the scenery and get

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 everything okay, then everybody will think I'm wonderful, except that I know I'm a piece

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 of shit, you know? And so it doesn't work. I see people, you know, on this program, I'm

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 actually working, it's the craziest thing. I'm working now with three people and we're

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 going through the steps with the addiction now, you know, they've all been through SLA,

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 but the process I go through of really using the big book as a tool to examine yourself

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 can be used for more than alcohol or drugs and using it for this addiction to, oh, that's

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 the person that's going to make me okay. You know, come on, come on, come on, come on,

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 come on, come back here. Oh, God damn it. You know, you know, we get, you know, we,

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 you know, first we're kinder and more loving. And then because our ego is trying to get

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 us into it and the steps are working for that, you know, it's really, it's fascinating. We're

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 going through the, even the first step of body, you know, I'm powerless over, over alcohol

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 and my life is un manageable and it's both body wise and mentally and, and spiritually.

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 And once we get into the, you know, where I'm okay for a while and then I find her and

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 this guy, I sponsor, he teaches, he gives workshops in Europe for Christ sakes, you

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 know, because they take him over here to do workshops and he really helps people because

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 he got a really fabulous recovery from heroin and alcohol and stuff in the, in the ghetto.

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 And they think he's wonderful, except that he's still, you know, okay, God can handle

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 this, but there's part of this, this part that I never got this connection to mother's

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 love and I can find it now. And it gets over to Europe and there's four good looking young

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 women in there. He's 65 and black and they're 32 and white, but that doesn't matter. They're

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 looking at him, you know, because he's the answer and he, you know, he violated all his

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 principles because he's like, he got into it, you know, it's like it kicked in again.

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 So anyway, I'm okay in my life. Yeah. When he came back, you know, I want, what time

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 is it now? Yeah. Well, I've got some time. Yeah. One of my, one of my stories about you

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 know, just the craziness of alcohol was was I decided, God damn it, I've got to get laid.

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 You know, I'm 22 years old and I haven't been laid and I keep pretending like I know what

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 to happen that every time I get near a woman, I like get all scared, you know, it's like,

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 and I can't do it. And so I'm going to seek professional help. So I decided I got my little

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 blue Ford and I drove, I was in Seattle and I drove through downtown Seattle. Actually

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 there's a lot of professional help. I was seeking professional help, you know, of the,

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 of the informal kind and, and we'll go through Portland and down to San Francisco. There's

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 a lot of professional help in Seattle, but it was kind of odd. And and down to here in

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 LA and then on to where any good Navy kid would go, you know, if he was seeking professional

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 help in 19, when was it 1958 or something? And that was to Tijuana, you know, and I got

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 out of my little blue Ford and Tijuana and there was, there was professional help helpers

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 on the street. I want to come over here and I got a little scared, you know, I've just

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 been thought, been thinking for God knows, you know, five or 10 years about getting,

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 getting laid. And now, you know, it's about to happen, but I, I was a little nervous.

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 So I decided to go into a bar and have a drink and, and their bourbon was awful and the scotch

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 was awful, but they had this tequila stuff, you know, that was, and they had this little

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 ritual where they put a little salt and then they looked at, and then they took a shot

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 and it was really good. I thought I'd have another one. And I did, you know, look shot.

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 And then that was really even better. I think I'll have another shot. And I think something

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 happened that night, but I'm not quite sure. I have a vague memory of road beds and dirt,

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 but I can't really remember any of them. So I really drove 1500 miles back to Seattle

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 problem unsolved, you know, God damn alcohol, you know, it was that tequila. That was the

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 problem. But we always have some bloody excuse, you know, from that. And there was a lady

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 back in Seattle that then rejected my brother that spotted me because I had a job. I was

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 working for Boeing and she dragged me over to apartment and she got me. So I had a couple

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 of drinks, so I wasn't like this, but not so many drinks. I was barking on her and which

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 was another problem I had. And it's really discouraging in a relationship, but if you

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 go back out again, you know, try not to barf on the woman. And she solved my problem. And

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 so now I'm a man. So now I've got her and actually I've got her every night because

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 I don't want to let her go. But I also got this blonde from work. It's really pretty

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 that I've been longing for an awful lot. But this one wanted to get married and said, OK,

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 I'll get married because I don't want to lose her. But I'm still after the blonde from work.

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 And even after I married, you know, it's like we are so crazy. And that marriage got really

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 crazy. You know, that woman, the girl I married, she was quite young to 19 or 20 and had been

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 through the own hell. You know, people that are attracted to alcoholics are not necessarily

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 the best people in the world, you know, emotionally stable. And, you know, she you know, I taught

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 her to drink really. And she would she exceeded. She really exceeded me. And she would get

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 so goddamn drunk, she would pound her head against the wall after screaming epithets

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 at me. And I would finally learn to not pay any attention to people that go into blackouts.

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 But but I only realized recently that the reason she was pounding her head was, yes,

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 she was emotionally crazy. But it was also I was emotionally unavailable. I've been trained

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 by those two parents of mine not to express emotion. If you have negative emotion, you

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 don't do it. It's almost like you don't shit on yourself and you don't spout out, you know,

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 negative stuff. You keep it in, you stuff it in. You don't ever express it. So this

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 poor girl is trying to talk about her emotional problems with me. And I'm talking about what

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 did you know that according to science, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or according

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 to, you know, it's like, I'm totally no wonder she's pounding her head against the wall. And

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 we decided after a while, Seattle wasn't working out. We moved to Boston, we moved to Boston

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 where everything was going to be wonderful. And it worked, you know, kind of move that

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 the big book describes and it worked for a while. And then she we had two kids too, by

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 that time. And the drinking was worth on her part and my part. And then it really got worse

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 on her part. You know, she discovered she, she was going to help the people in the in

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 the Boston ghetto. And she ended up, you know, getting getting a lot of help as far as connecting

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 with drugs and heroin. And, and then she ran off, she deserted me with these two goddamn

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 kids and a dog and a cat in the house. And she ran off across the country with Billy,

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 the near knee breaking is a knee breaker. That was one of the, he had several professions,

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 knee breaking, prostitute, pimp and, and drug dealer, you know, he was a man of many trades

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 and she ran across the country with him, stole all the money she could get rid of. And I

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 was upset. I was terribly upset with her. And I can remember, you know, I actually,

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 I really do qualify for Al-Anon too. In fact, I've been in Al-Anon some, and I remember

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 here's my, my perfect Al-Anon AA saying one time when she was out running around with

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 somebody or other, I'm getting really, really angry at her drinking. And I get really drunk

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 and I start in a rage looking around the house for his fucking vodka, which I hate. And I

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 found it hidden in the drawer, two bottles of goddamn vodka. And I find myself in a drunken

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 rage pouring out her vodka into the sink. Goddamn bitch. We are so crazy. You know,

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 we are just goddamn nuts. And I see that we're nuts, you know, but we're nuts in sobriety

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 too. Anyway, what happened was what time is it now? Yeah. I want to, I want to get sober

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 somewhere in the medicine there. I was feeling so sorry for myself, but you know, I was suicidal

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 for a long time because it really gets, you know, it really gets confusing. You know,

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 you should be smart. You should be able to figure it out. You know, people on, you know,

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 gun smoke, which I watched, they seem to have figured out, you know, all these people seem

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 to all people you look at, you know, they're walking hand in hand. How come I can't figure

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 it out? You know, how come I'm so goddamn miserable? You know, how come I'm confused?

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 I can remember, you know, my wife, yeah, my wife had run away and I was up in Maine and

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 I was feeling so, you know, I decided, fuck it. And I dove into this. I decided, okay,

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 I'm going to swim out to that island and that I can just barely see in the icy waters of

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 the main fjords. And I dove into the water drunk as a skunk to swim out to the island.

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 And if I live okay, I'll live. And if I die, that's fine. Now, a guy named Bucky Fuller,

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 who you may have done this, did something similar in the, in Lake Michigan. And, but

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 he got out of there and when he turned around, he decided he would give his life to mankind,

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 which he did, you know, with an off geodesic dome and an awful lot of things. But when

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 I dove into the water and swam out there, I got really cold and I got really sober and

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 I decided it would be a really good idea to come back and go back to the fire and the

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 bottle of scotch I had and, and the hell was killing myself that night. So, which I'm really

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 glad because, you know, my life is, that was only, that wasn't too long before we, the,

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 you know, that's fascinating too. You know, I, I just, I, that goddamn wife of mine, I'm

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 thinking, I got, I hate her. I hate her. I wish she'd die. You know, that God would kill

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 her and drop a, you know, I don't care what, and then she runs off with across the country

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 and then I'm mad at her for running away. And when she calls up, you know, Billy apparently

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 didn't think she was a very good prostitute and she loved, he deserted her in San Francisco

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 and she said, Carter, can I come home? And I sent her the money to come home. This woman

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 that I've been screaming, you know, I wish she'd die, you know, and I sent her the money

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 to come home and we decided, Oh, okay, Boston didn't work out. Let's move to Los Angeles.

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 You know, we've got a, got a possible job out here and we moved to them and all the

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 little children here were little angels. You know, they got blonde hair. You didn't know

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 that, did you? But you know, from our point of view from Boston, all the little kids were

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 blonde and beautiful and singing on the beach. So we moved out here and of course that lasted

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 about two weeks and, and then you know, and then the craziness started again and I couldn't

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 get a job too. And I was, you know, I was lying around, you know, if you want to get

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 a job, here's, here's a secret I have. If you want to get a job, you shouldn't lie in

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 bed or getting drunk, thinking about getting a job and thinking about how you're going

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 to do it, you should actually get up and go look for a job. And I can't remember, it was

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 all in the middle of trying to get sober and try not to get over. Now she would, she actually

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 almost physically died from alcoholism, bad creatitis at the age of 31. She was a God

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 damn bad alcoholic, you know, two fists a day and a little bit of, get a little bit

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 of milk for her sustenance. And and that's where she got into the program. And then,

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 and then I got hooked into one of these friggin, you know, support group things and it was her

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 problem, but I decided to be a good person. I also, I was vaguely suspicious that getting

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 drunk every night and hating myself and not being able to get a job who had something

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 to do with getting drunk every night. You know, I didn't usually drink during the day.

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 I usually survive the day and got drunk at night survive. Okay. And every night after

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 night after night. So I didn't do whatever needed to be done during the day, but then

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 I relieve myself by getting drunk at night. And, and thought maybe there's a relationship

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 between and I tried not drinking because they told me in the support group, don't drink

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 and just support her the ditch, you know, but I'm sorry, but that was, we did not have

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 a, have you ever, have you ever laid side by side with the woman that you've sometimes

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 loved and you're like, you know, you don't touch each other because you hate each other

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 so much. You don't touch me, you know, it's like, Jesus, you know, that was, that was

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 throughout that whole period, you know, don't touch me. I can't. And so I tried not drinking,

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 you know, and and I actually, and I also tried looking for a job at that same time, you know,

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 I tried looking for a job. I think it was connected to the, I started going to, I didn't

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 want to go to fucking AA because they made, they said you shouldn't drink. And I wanted

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 to retain my right to drink because she had the problem. So I went to Allen on of all

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 things and and I stayed sober for a while and I got a job and then, which, and then

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 after I got the job, everybody at work, this is 1974, everybody at work drank a lot and

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 I wasn't drinking and it wasn't fair that I could drink and they could, I couldn't drink

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 and they could drink. And I finally decided, you know, my problem was I drank at home alone.

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 That was the problem. And and it would be all right if I drank socially because I never

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 drank socially before. And it's like people, I didn't like going, I wasn't a bar drinker.

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 They scared me, but I just drank, you know, and watch television or drooled on myself.

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 And so I decided I'm going to become a social drinker and I'm only going to drink with other

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 people and then it will be okay. And I remember we went to San Francisco on a business thing

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 and I drank there and it was okay. So then I came back and for almost a whole week, that

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 worked pretty well. It was an experiment that was looking really successful, except that

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 there was no underlying, you know, you know, let's look at the conditions that cause us

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 to cause that thing. Yeah. You know, people that have shitty whatever, you know, don't

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 necessarily drink. They may use or they may overachieve or they may, you know, they may

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 overeat or they may do all sorts of things to suppress the thing. So, but alcohol was

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 what works for me. And I, and one night I'm driving home and I'm facing this goddamn environment

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 at home with the crazy children and the wife that may or may not be there that I hate anyway,

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 because she caused me all these problems. And so I decided, well, I'll stop at Woody's

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 Steakhouse and I'll have a steak barrier. I won't have to go home. And when I was at

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 Woody's Steakhouse, I looked at all these people and I thought, gee, there's lots of

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 people here. I could have a drink. You know, it's not quite, it's social drinking, you

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 know, they're here and I'm there. So I had a, I'll just have one though. So I had a triple

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 martini at Woody's Steakhouse. And it turns out that a triple martini was not enough to

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 calm the mind. Mind is still going, you know, and I had this thought, well, I'll buy to

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 hell with it. I'll go out and buy my bottle of Cutty Sark and take it home. And I loved

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 Cutty Sark. It had this ship on it and I always had this fantasy if I could get in the ship

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 and just go off into fantasy land on the good ship Cutty Sark. And I'm about to leave and

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 go get my bottle of Cutty Sark. And through God's grace, I had a thought. I had a thought,

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 if you get that bottle of Cutty Sark, it's not going to take you off into happy land.

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 It's going to take you back to the last 12 years of fights and blood and confusion and

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 suicide attempts and hatred. And it's going to take you back to 12 years of goddamn misery.

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 And that 12 years of misery got compressed into that Cutty Sark. And it was like, no,

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 I don't want it was God's grace. You know, it was like, I work with people that, you

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 know, that don't have that, you know, they just sort of stumble around and it's like,

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 it can be even years in AA of in and out and in and out before they say, Oh, I can't do

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 it. But I got it in one compressed thing of, you know, it reminded me reminded me of trying

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 to put the cat in the cat box to take it to the fat bit. No, you know, all four paws against

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 the guy gave me another gift to that I didn't quite recognize initially. And that is the

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 gift of realizing the problem is here. The problem isn't the damn bitch wife. The problem

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 isn't the crazy kids. The problem isn't the job. The problem isn't the parents that obviously

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 fucked up when they raised you the problem or 2000 miles away. The problem is me and

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 my thinking and the solution. I'd been around this program enough. The solution seems to

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 be in this program in this process of steps. And it got me into working the steps and looking

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 at myself and looking at my behavior, eventually finding a sponsor and, and being willing.

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 There was a willingness, you know, I realized, you know, I was a month sober and I was driving

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 to work and actually was I we lived near the beach and I was driving to work along the

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 beach. And I had this realization, I'd rather be alive than dead. I'd rather be alive than

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 dead. That was such a wow. You know, maybe there's a possibility for Carter in this world,

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 you know, possibility, peace and happiness and joy. And that got me into, you know, I

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 found a sponsor and I did the one minute, one minute to go. Oh, okay, one minute to

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 go. And that drove me into the steps and the willingness to work through the steps and

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 the willingness. I just want to say, you know, that at five years sober, I was still looking

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 for a woman and I, and, and because I was still scared, I still had that thing. And

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 finally, you know, I finally, I was over, I felt okay about myself at five years sober

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 that I had something to offer another woman. And, and first I explored the world of women.

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 I just had fun and took out on dates and then I found the woman I've been with for the last

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 40 years, you know, and staying with a woman for 40 years as powerful as my wife is, is

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 not that easy. And over and over again, I've had to choose, choose a loving relationship

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 over being right over and over again. I'm so right. I'm so right. She should understand

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 it except that I love her and I care about her. That's the power of that is that you

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 know, that I want, I want to, I want love. I want a connection with God. I want connection

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 with other people. And it's been 40 years now, 40, I'm going to be sober 48 years. And

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 in about, and this coming week and 48 years since that moment in Woody's steakhouse. And,

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 and it's been a life of, you know, peace and possibility for the last 10 years, I've really

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 gotten heavily into spirituality and teaching meditation and teaching what I just talked

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 about over and over again, working with people to help them connect to that power greater

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 than themselves that can solve their problems over and over again, to understand that their

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 problems are not out there. The problems are in their thinking about what's out there and

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 that their true self is not this little ego itself, but this child of God, this awareness,

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 this formation of God that is okay. Each and every one of us is inside perfectly. Okay.

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 We just haven't figured it out yet. Some of them. I love you all. I love this program.