you see me okay on zoom. All right. All right. Thanks you for asking me to share tonight.
It's an honor and a privilege to share in a meeting. Thank you for your 10 minute share.
Welcome new folks. I saw a lot of hands first 30 days. I've been there as well. Statistics
for me, my sobriety date is May 10th, 1988. And I was just, I just turned 19 years old
when I got sober. You can do the quick math on that. Actually that's what my first resentment
was. My, my birthday is April fool's day. So I got picked on a lot for that. And you
know if you're new you know, I was told I was new, try to listen for the similarities,
not so much the differences and you know, try to take away maybe a couple of things
that you remember that you identify with. Cause for me, you know, my experience has
been, it's that, it's that identification, you know, I thought I was different. My case
was unique. He didn't understand. And you know, coming in these rooms, you know, I think
in the, you know, within the first week after going through detox, I sat in a room very
similar to this. And you know, we, we were doing a, I mean, just reading the big book
and this guy next to me was sharing and I, it's the first time I identified and heard
someone say out loud the way I felt inside. And you know, that's where the magic for me
started to happen. I'm a local, I'm a, what am I, a second generation Los Angeles, Angelino.
My dad was born here in LA. Grew up in Culver City, the West side. Any West sides around
here? I think I heard something. Yeah. Went to Culver High School and you know, just kind
of you know, I was just, I got picked on a lot. I, I was a smart aleck kid, always a
liar, cheat and a thief. You know, that's kind of my motto. That's how I rolled. I started
lying early, you know, at an early age, maybe four or five years old. You know, I was getting
molested by an older boy in my neighborhood and you know, I had to lie and cover that
up, you know, cause I felt ashamed about that and did a lot of lying to cover that up. I,
I you know, would lie about, I remember I accidentally in sixth grade, I'd accidentally
broke a friend's, you know, their chair, you know, I just kind of stood on this chair and
broke the bar across the feet. And I said, well, you know, let's make up a story of why
it broke. And they just looked at me like, why? It's like, it was an accident, you know,
but I always just felt I got in trouble. You know, I remember in school I gave a teacher,
maybe sit on the bench, you know, during recess because she thought I was doing bad behavior,
but it was this other kid. It really was this other kid. And I gave the teacher the finger
when she turned around and they said more, you know, and then some kid ratted me out
and they said, Morgan, you know, did you did you do that? And I was, you know, flashing
back to like a Brady bunch episode where, you know, they said, you know, they Peter
Brady don't lie. Don't ever tell a lie. So I didn't lie. I told the truth and I got suspended
for three days. So I was like, well, I'm not doing that again. And you know, just like
a typical, you know, kid of the seventies, my parents split up when I was pretty young,
you know, by eight years old and my mom went off for like a year.
She went like, she was gone, you know, she went back to New Jersey and you know, don't
remember it too well, but you know, more of it came back in sobriety when she started
going through all these letters that my dad wrote to her when she was when she moved out.
And yeah, that's, that's about the time where I started ditching school, eight, eight years
old, I'm ditching school you know, taking the city buses home and, you know, I got kids
and you know, we're helicopter parents these days, but you know, back in the day, it's
like, you know, we just, we were out wild, you know, just roaming the streets and and
you know, just grew up with a lot of fear, a lot of fear growing up. And you know, like
I said, I got picked on a lot. So I, my defense mechanism was to make you laugh, you know,
maybe if I made you laugh, you wouldn't beat me up. You know, there were a couple of bullies
like that my elementary school and in junior high and high school, so I'd always try to
make them laugh. I actually heard it's funny, I was such a disruptive force in an elementary
school, my, my fifth grade teacher said, Look, I'll make a deal with you. Like, I'll give
you one minute before lunch every day to get up and entertain the class. And then you have
to promise, you know, to leave us alone for the rest of the day. So I'd get up there,
you know, entertain the class with some skit I saw on Saturday Night Live or I remember
my dad taking me to Venice Beach and seeing this bong salesman on Venice Beach, I thought
he was the funniest thing ever. And I, you know, was selling the kids bongs, you know,
in fifth grade and doing the skit. And, you know, for me, alcohol, alcohol has always
been around my house, you know, my dad was a heavy drinker. You know, there's always
alcohol lying around, I take a sip here, there where I could get it. And, you know, wasn't
until, you know, dad would say, Hey, go get me a beer, you know, take a sip of his beer.
Then like, next time I take two sips or three sips and chug a mug and then we're stealing
a beer in there. He'd get hard alcohol for like a Christmas present. He's not really
a hard alcohol drinker. And, you know, my brother and I would, you know, siphon that
down and water it up a little bit. And, you know, but my first like drunk drunk, I was
13 years old. I was, my friend's parents were out of town and, you know, we knew we wanted
to get drunk. You know, we knew like this drunk thing was supposed to like, make you
feel good, make you laugh. I mean, again, growing up in the 70s, I watched a lot of
TV shows, watched, you know, Adam 12 and ships and all these police shows where, you know,
if you got drunk, you couldn't like touch your nose and you couldn't walk a straight
line and all these things. And, and my idols, you know, one of my idols was this guy named
Hawkeye Pierce from the show called Mash. And, you know, everybody loved him. The women
loved him. You know, he was, you know, he was getting back at Frank Burns, the bully
and, you know, he was saving lives. So I'm like, yeah, that's my guy. And, and so there's
this one episode where, you know, these guys had a still in their, in their tent. And one,
one episode they were playing checkers with the martini glasses that every time they jumped
they take a shot. So my buddy and I, we said, that's a great idea. So we got this checkerboard,
these shot glasses. As Paris, we're out of town and we said, "We're going to get drunk
playing mass checkers." We set up the board and we jump and take a shot. Every time we
took a shot, we get up, try to walk a straight line, we try to touch our nose because we
knew this alcohol is supposed to do something to you. My first drunk, I had 13 shots of
whiskey. I love the feeling that alcohol gave me. That fear, that emptiness, that hole that's
inside of us, that just filled up. The room was spinning. I remember it vividly. I love
the effect produced by alcohol. I love the effect. It's like, "All right, well, how do
we do this again?" We're 13 years old and it's not readily available. There was a liquor
store up the street there, an old downtown Culver City that we would stand outside. Depending
on who worked that night, it was owned by this lady and her sons, these biker sons.
If the sons were working that night, they didn't care. They'd sell us booze. If the
old lady was working, she wouldn't sell it to us. We'd stand outside and get someone
to buy us booze. Favorite thing for us to do is what would get us downtown quick would
be Bacardi 151. My buddy and I, we'd buy that 151. Back in the early '80s, Westwood was
the happening place to be on a weekend night. We'd go into Westwood and there was a Taco
Bell there. We'd get a 32-ounce big gulp, sip just enough so we could pour in that half
pint of 151 each. We'd just walk around Westwood just drunk off our butts. We would do that
weekends, weekends. Then the alcohol started getting into the weekdays and started interrupting
with school a little bit. In high school, well, actually in junior high, there was a
period in junior high, a 10-week period, one quarter where I ditched school for eight weeks.
This is before modern technology. There was no automated texts or voice calls or internet
where you could check and see. My parents could see what the heck I'm up to. I just
forged their signature on notes and got out of class. That's how we used to do it back
in the day. I got caught and I made up all that work. I got straight Bs for the two weeks
that I did show up. My brain said, "Okay, I can do this and get away with just enough
to pass, just enough to get a good enough grade." That was good enough. I started drinking
more in high school, started losing, missing a lot more school in high school because alcohol.
We used to go to the park. We'd go on the bike path down to Marina del Rey. We'd stay
at my buddy's house and just wait for the parents to leave and go right back home. Whatever
it is, we were just trying to get inebriated. Other things started presenting themselves.
My buddy's dad was a musician and he had these big garbage bags of just junkweed. We'd go
into the garage and smoke this god-awful marijuana and get high. That's just how he did it. One
of the big turning points for me was when I turned 16, my alcohol really took off. I
got a job. Some of you might remember, there used to be this semi-famous nightclub on Overland
Avenue just north of Venice Boulevard back in the '80s called Chippendales. When I was
16 years old, I got a job working at Chippendales. It was great. Every night, women were giving
me money and I was working up a nice sweat. Now, you have to remember, I was just a parking
attendant. I wasn't a dancer. I was 16. I'm 16, so I'm parking cars. You got to mention
it there. There was these big, muscular, good-looking guys with the friggin' rock star hair that
you had in the '80s. I drank to feel like they looked. I wanted to be like them. I'd
get like the leftovers in the parking lot, so to speak. It was a three-drink minimum
at that club. You'd have the regular show where they do their little strip club stuff,
but then it became a regular nightclub afterwards. It was actually on, I think it was Netflix
or YouTube. They just did a whole docuseries on it. It was almost 100% right. It just became
a regular nightclub. I'd park your car drunk. I was a drunk driver parking your car, stole
off from cars, stole a lot of money, sunglasses, radios. If it wasn't tied down, we were grabbing
it. I got to discover heavier narcotics there at that location. One night, the Mater D came
up to me and said, "Hey, our drug dealers aren't here every night." He's like, "So why
don't you and your buddies go buy some drugs? Then I'll come to you in the parking lot.
You give it to me. I give it to the customer. I'll give you the money. You don't have to
deal with them direct. It'll be great. You'll make some money." We're like, "Yeah, sure.
Why not?" I think we did that twice. I think one time we made some money and then the second
time we became our best customers. That's kind of how that worked. It really accelerated
my alcoholism. More so, I had no spiritual path or God in my life. God was mentioned
earlier. God's up there. If you're new and you're all about this God thing, it's like
I didn't have any formalized religion growing up. For me, I'd only went to church growing
up if I was spending the night at a buddy's house and they went to church the next day.
Then they'd take me to church and I would run a riot. I'd say, "Hey, I was awful. If
we play hangman, I would just write bad words for the hangman answer and stuff like that."
Another time I was looking for, actually, my junior prom date. This one girl I asked,
she dumped me. She said, "No, I'm going to go to the senior." My buddy said, "Hey, man.
I'm going to Hebrews class school in Beverly Hills a couple of days a week because I want
you to come to my Hebrew school class. There's some good-looking girls there. You can find
your prom date there." I went to Hebrew school for a couple of times and found my prom date.
For me, it was like there was no God, no higher power, nothing spiritual. My high school friends,
they tried to send me over to there's a thing called Young Life in high school back then.
"Hey, come to Young Life." It just wasn't sticking. It was just a lost cause. With school
back at that time, too, I'm just not showing up. I'm doing enough for the regular classes.
I'm doing enough just to get by. I'm getting the Cs. I'm getting some Bs. That's about
as good as it got. PE. PE in California, you only need four semesters of PE. I took PE
eight times in high school just because I would not show up and I get failed. My senior
year, I had PE three times. Twice in one semester, I had PE at second period and sixth period.
It was just from not showing up. I just wouldn't show up.
What happened was I just got worse and worse in that parking lot. I started stealing money
from my bosses. The alcoholism, it got progressively worse where I knew that if I kept going the
way I was going, I was going to die. On the other hand, I felt like if I stopped doing
what I was doing, I was going to die. I was just caught in that dilemma of just hopelessness.
What happened was I had been dating this girl a couple of years in high school. I broke
up with her because she couldn't put a Band-Aid on my finger. That's a good reason to break
up with somebody. I said, "Okay, I'm free. I can do what I want to do now." I was back
in that business at the parking lot, that illegal business.
It just so happened that my ex-girlfriend was friends with the girlfriend of my business
associate. They started talking about what I was doing. My ex-girlfriend called my mom.
I come home one day and my mom's on the phone with her going, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh."
She's like, "Hey, I just heard all this stuff. Is this true what she's saying?" I'm like,
"Yeah, it's true." She's like, "Well, what are we going to do?"
I'm pretty quick on my feet. I know about getting the heat off and not trying to get
in trouble. I said, "Hey, I'll get help." It was like 50/50. 50% said, "Yeah, I need
to get help." 50% of me didn't want to get help, but I wanted to get the heat off.
I had had episodes in the past where I was successful at circumventing trouble. I had
forged my ID when I went to Hawaii at 17 years old back then. The drinking age was 18. Some
guy said, "Oh, I can make that ID into an eight-year-old ID." He butchered up my California
driver's license. Then I got caught for speeding one day and the police officer said, "This
is a doctored driver's license. I'm taking this and confiscating it. You'll have to go
to court." In court, I told the judge, "Oh, I just got it washed in the washing machine."
Another time I had gotten several ... I had been in court too for some moving violations
before I even had a driver's license and been in there with my mom because I was under 16
and stuff. Then my buddies and I got caught smoking weed down in Santa Monica on a parking
structure and they said, "Well, you're going to have to go to court with your parents."
That court date came, didn't tell my parents, so I called the court. I'm like, "Yeah, my
court date was this morning. I can't come or I've missed it." The guy's like, "All right,
well, you're going to have to go to the Inglewood Court now." That just sounded scary, going
from Santa Monica to Inglewood Court. He's like, "Hold on, kid." He puts down, he came
back and he said, "Hey, kid, weren't you in here with your mother for that moving violation?"
I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Tell you what, kid." I said, "I want you to write in your
best handwriting, 'Possession of marijuana is illegal 200 times,' and get it on my desk
first thing tomorrow morning." I said, "Thank you very much." That's kind of how I roll.
That was my Teflon Don, so to speak, ways of staying out of trouble. With my mom, I'm
like, "Yeah, I'll get the heat off." With her works insurance, they sent me off to detox
four nights a week. Two of the nights was parent night. I'd go with the parents. They'd
be there two of the nights. It was just me and some other sober guys trying to get sober.
I'd go to this place. I drive from Culver City down to Crenshaw Boulevard right off
the 405. It wasn't helping. I would go in, and they would talk about ... I can remember
them just talking about charts and graphs like, "Here's this bell curve, and here's
death down here, and here's a happy life here. This is where the direction you're heading
and stuff if you don't change your ways. Yeah, there's these step things, but you're not
ready for it," is kind of what I heard. He said, "Yeah, maybe you should go to those
meetings or whatever in your neighborhood. Here's a list of them, but I never went."
I would just go back to the club after those outpatient things. I had to quit, so I had
to quit. It was my 19th birthday. Basically, right when I turned 19, I had to quit the
club. For the next month, four nights a week, I was going to this outpatient place. It wasn't
helping. Sometimes, I'd start to drive. If it wasn't parents' night, 50/50 if I would
make it or not, and I'd start to drive the car and turn the car right back around because
I'd start driving, and this hole would fill up in my gut. I felt this hole put up in my
gut, telling me, "This isn't helping. This isn't helping me," and I'd just go back and
get drunk. Sometimes, I'd show up drunk. I can remember one time, I had this beautiful
1965 Mustang convertible. I'd pull up in the parking lot. The guy's office is right there.
The window's right up on the second floor. I'd pull in the parking lot, and I'd open
up my trunk. I'd have a quart of Miller beer. I'd just lean down into the car and just drink
it right out of the straw and then go up into the outpatient place, and I'd do that a lot
too. Finally, it just kept going that way. I just felt like this isn't helping. Maybe
I need to go somewhere else. At the time, I heard about going to a retreat in Lake Arrowhead.
I'm like, "Yeah, that'll fix it." If I go to Lake Arrowhead, that's what I need. I need
to get out of town. Finally, what happened was just after one more time of trying to
control and enjoy my drinking and not having any control, I had this one scenario where
it's a funny story. My buddy had it. My best friend's cousin was living with him, and he
was a FedEx driver. Somehow, him and his FedEx buddies happened to come along in an ounce
of cocaine in the FedEx packages and confiscated it for themselves. He had his share, and he's
working the night shift, so he's like, "Hey, Morgan, I got to go work the night shift. Here,
hold on to this eighth of an ounce of cocaine for me, and when I get off in my shift in
the morning, we'll go party and stuff." Needless to say, that eighth of an ounce was gone.
I consumed the whole thing overnight. Then he shows up in the morning and says, "Hey,
come on over." I went over, and I'm like, "Well, I got some good news, bad news." I've
heard these things they talk about in that outpatient thing, so I said, "I got some good
news, bad news." I said, "The bad news is all your stuff is gone." I said, "But the
good news is I think I'm ready to admit I'm powerless." He didn't care. He was pretty
upset, but that was the turning point. I drank all that day. I started driving that outpatient
thing that night, and that pole was opening up, and it was telling me, "Turn the car around.
Don't go. It's not helping you." Some kind of car made it into the parking lot that night.
I'm like, "Well, I'm just going to stay in my car." I just sat in my car and thought and
think and said, "Oh, I'll go inside." Somehow, I made it inside into the stairwell, and I
sat in the stairs. I said, "Please help me." I wasn't talking to him. I don't know who
the hell I was talking to. I know today I was talking about him because right after
I had said that, he came down to the counselor, and he's like, "Yeah." He's like, "This ain't
working out. You need to go to a 30-day detox." I said, "Yeah, I think you're right." He's
like, "Well, it was a Tuesday night." He's like, "I can't get you in the night. I can't
get you in tomorrow night, but maybe Thursday, Friday, we can get you in." I'm like, "Okay."
I went back to the club. "Hey, everybody. I'm going to detox. Who wants to buy me? I'm
getting locked up. Last chance." No one wanted to play with me. I had lost all my friends
by that time. I found some lower companion. I bought like a pint of rum. Then I drank
that. Then the next day, I went to outpatient. It wasn't parent night that night, but somehow
my parents were there. There was my bag packed, ready to go. They're like, "Yeah, you're going
to night." I'm like, "Oh, man." The look at my parents' face, I never want to forget that.
It was that look of, "I love you. I hate you. I'm afraid for you." All those emotions wrapped
up into just one look on their face. Off we went down to Long Beach. I got sober. That
was May 10th, 1988. We drive down to Long Beach. They put me through this place called
Pacific Health Systems. Back in the '80s, right about then, they had a little hospital.
They'd send you there for detox. Then once you got through your seven-day detox, they
owned these very beautiful Victorian rented, these Victorian houses down in Long Beach.
That was where we would live during the night. Then during the day, we'd go back over to
the hospital and do our class. I just remember going into that place that night. I just had
this big grit on my face. The intake person's like, "Morgan, people don't come in here smiling."
I don't know. I don't know. I felt like, "Okay, maybe this will help. Maybe this will help
me get the heat off and take away the obsession, the desire to drink and use." They gave me
lots of vitamins and stuff that first couple of days, walked around my PJs. In that place,
within those first five days, I went to my first alcoholics anonymous meeting. I can't
tell you exactly. I'm pretty sure the main speaker was a gal, a woman named Pat Wai.
I can't remember exactly what they said, but I remember there was laughter. I remember
there was some identification. It's about it. That's about what I remember. Then I remember,
like I mentioned earlier, getting out of that mandatory detox phase before they sent me
into the group. They said, "Here's your big book." I'd never heard. I kind of heard about
alcoholics anonymous before. I think in the '70s, Linda Blair was in a ABC TV movie like
Teenage Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, and Mark Hamill was in that too. In high school
too, my buddies and I, there was a bunch of us. Rap music, early '80s rap was just getting
real popular, so we formed our little rap group, and we called ourselves the Boozers.
We've made these raps. The only thing I remember at all from all that stuff is there was this
one chorus where the lines were, "No alcoholics are allowed. No AA members in our crowd. They
lie, they cheat, they rob on the street. That's why they attend three meetings a week." I'd
never been to an AA meeting before. I don't know where I got this information from, but
that's what I knew about alcoholics anonymous. I'm reading this book, and like I said, this
guy was sharing this corporal. He was a corporal, a Marine Reserve sharpshooter. I have nothing
in common with this guy. He starts reading and then reading a paragraph, and then he
shares about his own, how he relates to that paragraph. I was like, "Yeah, me too." It
was the first time I ever said, "Yeah, me too." I've been, "Yeah, me too," for 35 years
now. That's where the magic started to happen. Then I started reading things in there. They
crammed me through the steps pretty quick in those 30 days. They put me through the
first three steps. I learned, yes, I saw where I was powerless over alcohol. My life was
unmanageable. The easy thing was like, "Morgan, normal people don't go to alcoholics anonymous.
You might have a problem with alcohol. Normal people just don't show up here just to hang
out. You probably have a problem." Then I saw how throughout my life, just all the unmanageability.
The first time I got drunk, drinking those 13 shots of whiskey, I had this cool poop
moped. You would turn the handlebars, and you had this lock to lock the steering wheel
like in this position so someone couldn't steal your moped. That first drunk, I lost
my key. I'm having to do wheelies like this up and down the street to get back home after
that first drunk. That was like first unmanageability in my life.
Then they talked about coming to believe that a power greater than myself could restore
me to sanity. They just said, "Morgan, do you believe this broom of alcohol synonymous?
If they all decided they wanted to beat the crap out of you, could you stop them?" I'm
like, "No. Well, that's a power greater than yourself." It's like, "Can you stop a wave
from crashing on the beach?" I'm like, "No." It's like, "Well, that's a power greater than
yourself." I started to hear these things in meetings and hearing my higher power from
the podium, from people talking, from people sharing with me.
Like I said, I had no religion growing up. I had trouble with the whole God thing, but
they would say things like, "Well, it's good orderly direction," and this and that. "Just
use the group as your higher power for now and take it a day at a time." I did.
After that 30 days, I got out of that detox. I had done my first three steps. They said,
"Okay, go get a sponsor and start doing that inventory." I'm like, "Okay, you've got it."
I didn't exactly follow that direction 100%. A lot of you folks raised your hand to being
new. I decided, "Well, I want to chase her over here. I want to chase her too." I knew
these sponsors didn't like that so much, having relationships and stuff in your first year.
I just did my self-will run riot. Now, I was fortunate after that 30 days that that facility
also had sober living. I was smart enough to say, "Yeah, I need to stay in a sober living
and stay down here in Long Beach with the people I got sober with and still go to these
meetings," because they were taking us to meetings every night in that first 30 days.
I'm like, "I still need to do that." My roommate in the sober living was that jarhead marine
corporal. He had a sponsor, and he didn't have a car. I had a car. I didn't have a sponsor.
We'd drive to meetings together, and I'd have to wait for him after the meeting. He's out
there talking to a sponsor. His sponsor's got all his guys listening. He's giving them
insight and wisdom and stuff. I'm just sitting there taking it in and doing sponsored by
osmosis. I wasn't willing to surrender 100%. I liked this guy. I would have asked this
guy to be my sponsor, but the problem was down at our group down there in Long Beach,
this guy was known as the celibate sponsor. No relationships in your first year, not even
with yourself, if you know what I mean. That's how hardcore this guy was. I did myself well.
I was benefiting from my roommate would come home and say, "Oh, man. My sponsor's making
me write about this and that and that and this." I'm like, "Maybe I should do that too.
If he's telling him to do that, maybe I should do that too." I was doing the same things
and doing the footwork that this guy was telling my roommate to do, but I was doing it indirectly.
Finally, the pain got great enough. I was chasing some girl and I sold her my car and
I said, "Sure, you can make payments." You know how that went. I knew I wasn't doing
this inventory. I was going crazy. I'm like, "I got to do this inventory." I surrendered.
I asked this guy to be my sponsor and did my inventory. The magic started happening
after that. I eventually moved back up to the west side and moved back in with my mom,
went back to Santa Monica College. I had dropped out of Santa Monica College, took a whole
bunch of incompletes that spring of '88. I said, "Well, I want to go back to school."
Went back to Santa Monica College. At the college on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they had
AA meetings during the day. I'd go to those AA meetings and I started meeting all these
other young folks. There were some young guys and gals that were part of the Pacific group.
At least down there at the time, it seemed like the Pacific group people kind of like,
"Yes, I'm attending all my classes and I'm doing my homework." Some of these other guys
that were kind of doing self-will run riot on their own without any sponsorship or anything
were just kind of like crazy and not doing homework and I'm bailing in it.
I'm like, "Well, these guys are more of an attraction over here. I should do what these
guys do." I started hanging out with these guys. There was a guy from my high school
too, this guy named Jim that went to high school with me and he got sober 90 days before
I did. I happened to see him in a meeting down in Long Beach one time. He's like, "Yeah,
when you move back up, let's get connected and go to meetings." I was hooking up with
him, going to some local meetings around the area and just kind of not finding a home group.
One night we went to sober dance and he took me there and saw a bunch of people I saw from
Santa Monica College and some cute girls. They're like, "Oh, yeah, we go to Pacific
group. Why don't you come to Pacific group?" Jim's like, "I don't go to that friggin meeting."
He's like, "But I'll take you there." So he took me there. The only time he had never
been there, he's still sober 35 years. The only time he was there was to take me there.
I fell in love with the... There's a lot of young folks. There was a lot of old timers
with long-term sobriety and they were into action. That's what I needed. I needed action
and activity to keep me moving and... What did my A brother call me? Keep me busy because
my brain's a bad place to be. It's like they say, it's like a bad neighborhood. Don't go
in there alone. I changed sponsors and I got a Pacific sponsor in about 11 months of sobriety.
I've been a member ever since. I got involved with action. I got involved with being a general
service representative, central service representative, took panels into hospitals and institutions,
got very active. I also... After a couple of years hanging out there, I saw this cute
girl one day at the... We played. So I got really involved with sober softball. I was
an athlete growing up and I love to play sports. So they had softball. I was talking about
playing... We were talking about golf. I'm a big golfer too. And we were talking golf
and I said, "Yeah, let's go play golf down in..." I saw an ad for this resort down in
Pala Mesa, Fallbrook. It was like $79 for a hotel and two rounds of golf. What a deal
back in the '80s. And so 27 of us went down there and we've been doing an annual tournament
now for 35 years. Because again, it kept me busy. I had a couple of years sobriety. I
had sworn off women. I was dating this gal in the group and she's like, "I need time
to be by myself and figure myself out." And then a week later, she's with a different
guy. Then two weeks later, she's another guy. I'm like, "Forget it. I'm just going to date
and be casual. I'm not going to get serious." And then after one of our book study meetings,
so we were going out to coffee and I'm like, "I don't know where that place is." And they
said, "Oh, Andrea does. I don't know if she got on or not. She might." Yeah, there she
is. There's my wife. But they said, "Andrea knows where it is." And that was 1991. We've
been together ever since. We got married July 1993. So we'll be coming up on 30 years of
marriage this year. Yeah. And we had a great life. We had ups and downs. It's like that
movie Parenthood. There's a rollercoaster ride. It's going to be scary and suspenseful
as you're going up and then they're coming down and then there's the exhilaration. Life
is like a rollercoaster. But we've had a great life, adopted a couple of kids because
we couldn't have kids on our own. And then ironic enough, she's sober just one year less
than me. And then this past June, she gets diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. So
now we've been dealing with that. But I get the pleasure of being a service to her. I
was a very selfish, self-centered person in the way I treated other people and especially
women in my drinking. And so having been coming to the relationship with how can I be a service
to you, how can I give without asking anything in the receipt, without asking anything in
return has been magic for me. So I think my time is up. Yes, it is. So thank you again
for asking me to share. And if you're new, get a sponsor. If you don't have a sponsor,
do what they tell you to do without debate. And one day at a time. Thank you. There you
go. There you go. Actually, after our second tournament there, we were down there having
a big banquet in one of the ballrooms and Johnny Harris was there and Johnny Harris
says, "I was here in 1970 whatever for Chuck Chamberlain's new pair of glasses talk. Chuck
Chamberlain did his new pair of glasses talk." He's like, "Yep." We're like, "What's that?"
They kicked us out after about 13 years because of alcohol. Maybe every once in a while we'll
go back there.