1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000 Thank you very much. 2 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,340 Hi, my name is Ralph and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. 3 00:00:04,340 --> 00:00:08,080 Thank you very much for inviting me Ben, it's a pleasure sir. 4 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:12,600 And thank you very much for your lead and for your share, very touching and very important 5 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,120 all the stuff you said. 6 00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:19,000 Thank you for the warm welcome and everybody for your hospitality for allowing me to come 7 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:20,960 and speak to you folks. 8 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:25,240 Again my name is Ralph, I'm an alcoholic, trying to get some things out of the way. 9 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:33,040 I got sober at the age of 50 or there about back in August, August 4th of 1999 is my sobriety 10 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:34,040 date. 11 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:38,200 I haven't had a drink or any mind-altering substance from that day on and from that I 12 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:43,240 am grateful and I have Alcoholics Anonymous and all of its members and its activities 13 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:50,040 and literature and so on to thank for allowing me to stay sober and helping you stay sober 14 00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:51,680 a day at a time. 15 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:57,160 I came into the Alcoholics Anonymous program through the court system, I was a court ordered 16 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:05,880 to attend AA, I wasn't smart enough to go to a center or detox or going to AA meetings 17 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:06,880 on my own. 18 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,880 I honestly didn't know much, I didn't know anything actually about alcoholism as a disease. 19 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:22,760 I thought it was a matter of bad habits and moral or rather immoral turpitude and just 20 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:31,080 weakness in willpower, weakness in being able to stop drinking and that's what it was. 21 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:37,200 These are kind of defects but they're also a sign of my misunderstanding of alcoholism 22 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:43,240 as it was diagnosed by the American Medical Association decades ago as a disease, as a 23 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:50,480 mental physical disease with its traits and it's classified among other chronic illnesses 24 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:57,080 and I suffered of that and didn't know it but August 4th of 99 or August 3rd of 99 actually 25 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:04,920 eve I had a car accident, I live a little bit just to identify because I didn't always 26 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:11,840 feel this way or thought this way or think about life and about friends and about humanity 27 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:17,680 the way I do now, now that I am sober, I wasn't this way before. 28 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:25,560 I drank probably at the age of 18 or thereabout I was born in North Africa and to a Muslim 29 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:33,840 family with lots of discipline but also lots of love and a huge extended family that was 30 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:42,400 really very applied together and lived in Jewish neighborhoods primarily, grew up there 31 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:49,800 and attended schools that were primarily Jesuit in training and in teaching and absolutely 32 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:56,640 no issues in my upbringing at all, my father didn't drink to my knowledge ever, neither 33 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:04,800 did my mother, I have five sisters who don't drink, I have two brothers who do but I wasn't 34 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:10,480 aware alcohol is being running through our family at the level of genetics and stuff 35 00:03:10,480 --> 00:03:16,480 like that and when I began to drink it was probably about the age of 16, 17 and it was 36 00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:21,400 sneaking it with friends and buddies and so on and drinking mostly in graveyards at night 37 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:28,880 where nobody could, very quiet, where nobody could interfere and so on but it did have 38 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:38,160 an effect on me, it helped me cope with the issues that men going through puberty, go 39 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:43,720 through adolescence, those kinds of problems and it made things a little bit tamer and 40 00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:51,560 a little bit easier to survive in. I left the country in 1969 at the age of 20 to go 41 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:57,160 to France to go to college there and I picked up there, I picked up drinking there and I 42 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:02,320 used to justify my drinking when I lived in Paris for two and a half years, I used to 43 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:08,080 justify the drinking, excessive drinking actually on the fact that it was cold in France compared 44 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:13,680 to that. So instead of spending the money on better goods or thicker socks I spent it 45 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:23,600 on red wine and I consumed quite a bit of it unfortunately for me but I did take a liking 46 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:33,560 to it because it first of all it lessened my sense of lack of confidence, being a stranger 47 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:38,980 in the Spanish land where I lost college and I had to recover in some way and airports 48 00:04:38,980 --> 00:04:44,800 are loading, great planes and stuff and I did all kinds of hard work while I was going 49 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:51,280 to college in the daytime but the drinking took off and I remember I was hanging around 50 00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:59,560 lots of folks and places where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed and I took advantage. 51 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:05,000 I came to this country first in '60 but I came back in 1971 permanently and I've been 52 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:11,880 here ever since in June of '71 and I began working a different job that came with a green 53 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:17,920 card which I got from the American Embassy in Paris and I began working in different 54 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:24,240 places and going to college and getting promoted because I was in addition to being an alcoholic 55 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:29,820 which again I didn't know, I was also a workaholic so whatever job, whatever task I was given 56 00:05:29,820 --> 00:05:37,760 I tended to excel at Alice because I was perfectionist in whatever I did, I worked with compulsion 57 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:45,560 so I had that OCD trait of alcoholism in me from the beginning and so I was getting promoted 58 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:51,720 and I couldn't blame alcohol for anything because things were working out and I married 59 00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:57,760 my wife in September of 1974 and we've been together ever since so it's been 49 years 60 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:04,320 now after we've been together, she has been a saint for 25 out of those 49 years, that's 61 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:10,240 the ultimate experience, she really was extremely patient and tolerant and very, very understanding 62 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:18,800 and at the same time I'm treated alone in enabling my thing because I was again successful 63 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:25,800 after I was making money, I was buying new cars every five or six years and bought homes 64 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:30,040 and had the kids going through private schools in the beginning and stuff so everything was 65 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:37,720 going hunky-dooly but I began collecting DUIs from 1978, I think my first one was in 1978, 66 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:44,680 I had an attorney friend that I had, I should have had him on retailer but I didn't but 67 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:49,660 he was a criminal defense lawyer and just a wonderful man, his name was Adrian Barinovich, 68 00:06:49,660 --> 00:06:53,740 I say his name because he's dead now, he's been dead for about 10 years and he's a wonderful 69 00:06:53,740 --> 00:07:00,240 guy and he handled my DUIs and he was a smooth operator, he would smooth the city attorney 70 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:06,280 or the prosecutor or the judge into dwindling it down from a DUI down to a reckless lane 71 00:07:06,280 --> 00:07:12,800 change or an unsafe lane change so he did all that stuff but they all were wet as they 72 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:18,480 say, they involved alcohol and I don't think I ever had a problem when I was not drunk, 73 00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:24,080 I mean every time I had a problem, alcohol was involved and I never pointed the finger 74 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:31,200 to alcohol or to myself as somebody who is drinking, I always blamed the culture on anything 75 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:39,200 better to do than to pick on me while I was being arrested for this or that, I said isn't 76 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:43,100 there somebody getting raped right now or getting murdered, why don't you go there and 77 00:07:43,100 --> 00:07:49,640 leave me alone but it was all really just a childish, very immature way of thinking 78 00:07:49,640 --> 00:07:57,040 and an inability to face the fact that I had a problem with drinking alcohol, I never faced 79 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:03,080 that, I never said that about myself, I just saw a couple of incidents that I haven't forgotten 80 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:07,480 and I shared about them in the past so I still remember them fairly well, one of them was 81 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:14,360 I think in the mid 80s, like 84, 85, there was a, the French were celebrating in the 82 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:19,920 city of Beverly Hills where I worked, I worked for 34 years there, they were celebrating 83 00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:29,280 a new brood of Cabernet Sauvignon and Beaujolais, red wine and so they had signs everywhere, 84 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:37,340 at the discount at every restaurant and bars and so on and so it was discounted very well, 85 00:08:37,340 --> 00:08:42,860 I went with a friend of mine and a couple of clients to a restaurant just walking distance 86 00:08:42,860 --> 00:08:51,640 from the office and just began drinking like it was watery and we were having dinner but 87 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:56,640 I was actually drinking more than eating and the problem was when I stopped it, I couldn't 88 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,000 stop, that was my problem as an alcoholic and I never knew that this is the problem, 89 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:07,620 it's the first drink and eventually I was arrested at night, I somehow got into my car, 90 00:09:07,620 --> 00:09:14,560 I was arrested without an accident and came to in the Beverly Hills police jail, jailhouse, 91 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:20,480 you know, Bayon City Hall and when I came to in the morning and I realized where I was, 92 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,360 you know, I thought about last night, I said Jesus Christ, what the heck happened, I don't 93 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:29,440 remember at all, I was in a complete blackout and those became recurrent and more and more 94 00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:35,120 frequent to the blackouts version and I remember that the night before, you know, I remember 95 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:40,640 the opportunity for signs all over the place and the, you know, shiny lights and so on 96 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:46,240 and but I remember that we had, I had asked for the schedule of the night and the guy 97 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:57,000 said it was a fillet of the soul, cooked in an oven on a bed of rice, fillet with lots 98 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:02,880 of capers on top and all kinds of sweet stuff and it hit me at that time, in jail, in Beverly 99 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:10,720 Hills and it hit me that my problem was I ordered fish with red wine, rather than, you 100 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:17,800 know, the wine was the problem, red or pink or purple, it doesn't matter, the wine was, 101 00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:25,040 I said no, I blame the fish and it's, I violated the basic law of culinary rules, you know, 102 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:31,480 that you have meat with red wine, you know, but and that was that, you know, and again, 103 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:36,360 my friend Adrian, you know, helped me out, you know, and I called my wife, she came and 104 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:40,680 gave me a ride, you know, because they wouldn't let me out of jail till the next morning and 105 00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:46,320 she came to the poor, so we lived in the port of Ash by that time, I think we were, yeah, 106 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:50,680 we were, and she came and taught me some shoes and stuff, I had lost my shoes, I don't know 107 00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:57,560 when I lost them and yeah, so it's very unbelievable and another event that I still remember to 108 00:10:57,560 --> 00:11:03,520 this day and I came across it a decade ago, so I was doing some estate planning and I 109 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:10,080 came across a less insurance policy that I had taken, my son was sitting here, my son 110 00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:18,760 was born in 83 and I remember late 83, early 84, I was, I had had an accident already at 111 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:23,640 night and we lived in Glendale, I'm up on top of the hill in Glendale and you know, 112 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:29,720 windy streets, Merriam Drive, it was really a bad accident, I dislocated my shoulder, 113 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:36,240 cut my face, I had back problems and so on, but they didn't arrest me for DUI, I lied 114 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:40,120 to them, I just hit somebody who was running into me, so I tried to avoid the magazine's 115 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:44,760 black cars, but there was none of that was true really, I was in a blackout and I just 116 00:11:44,760 --> 00:11:54,360 fell asleep and I hit some black cars and the problem was that I knew that something 117 00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:58,680 was going to happen to me, that I probably, probably was going to die as a result of my 118 00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:07,000 drinking, as a consequence of my drinking and I said this and just very irresponsible 119 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:13,160 for a father to let his wife soon to become a widow and his son soon to become an orphan 120 00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:18,560 who we have to face this mortgage on the house, so I went and got a hold of a friend of mine 121 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:23,360 who used to work with me, who became a life insurance salesman from New York life and 122 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:28,800 I went ahead and bought a life insurance post and I thought that was a responsible thing 123 00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:35,920 to do, to essentially abdicate his personal responsibility to his family, his conjugal 124 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:42,200 duties basically and to, for a premium, for a fee, pass them out to a life insurance company, 125 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:48,520 so when I loved that as a result of an accident or a liver thirsting or whatever, that a life 126 00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:53,840 insurance company would step in, pay off the balance of the mortgage and leave the stipend 127 00:12:53,840 --> 00:12:59,040 for my wife and my son to be able to raise in schools and so on and so forth and I came 128 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:04,360 across that policy about a decade ago, going through and preparing for my life, I still 129 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:10,080 have that policy, I converted it into some other form of policy but still have it, it's 130 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:15,400 been in effect, it's really amazing, it hit me at that time, I said damn you know, I can't 131 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:23,920 believe I thought that way, I had missed that in my first inventories, and so when I had 132 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:31,040 that accident on August 3rd of 99 and I explained it, I described it because it really is when 133 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:36,600 the psychic change that Bill Doble talks about, that we talk about in this program, psychic 134 00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:46,340 change took place that night and it has shifted, radically shifted my life and it was, I went 135 00:13:46,340 --> 00:13:52,900 again with two friends actually and three clients and we were in a very nice restaurant 136 00:13:52,900 --> 00:13:59,040 in Beverly Hills and eating and drinking and I still don't remember to this day how I left 137 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:05,880 the place and how I got to my car, I had a brand new Lexus RX 300, they were still new 138 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:11,360 at that time in 99 and I only had about maybe 1800 miles on it, it was still brand new, 139 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:18,880 I rekt that total the damn thing which is really a shame but I got into that car and 140 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:24,960 began vibing and on which the boulevard was bombed from Beverly Hills heading to the 405 141 00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:33,520 in Westwood and somehow I ran into the entrance, a concrete barrier entrance to construction 142 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:40,280 trucks on Westwood boulevard near Kelton on one of the streets of Alcoma, head on at probably 143 00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:45,360 about 55 miles per hour, it was late at night, it was about 11 o'clock at night and I just 144 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:51,200 rammed into it and when I came through, the bags had already inflated and thank goodness 145 00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:56,100 I had the side bags and all that stuff but still I had glass all over my face and all 146 00:14:56,100 --> 00:15:00,760 over my scalp you know which for weeks after, I would do this and pick up a piece of glass 147 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:07,440 from my head and I had facial lacerations and my chest was really in bad shape, it was 148 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:14,800 just from the inflation of the of the airbags and when I came across the street, sitting 149 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:20,320 on the curb on the south side of Westwood boulevard, looking at my car burning, it was 150 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:25,240 in flames and the fire engines were there, there were two or three fire engines and they 151 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:33,320 were dozing it with foam to put out the fires and a police, a motorcycle police officer 152 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:41,320 came by and asked me if it was my car, I said yes and he asked me questions, he asked me 153 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:45,120 if I had been drinking and I said yeah, I had dinner and I had drinks with my dinner 154 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:49,760 and stuff, he said I was very cooperative, I remember all the stuff I know because I 155 00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:57,480 read the police report about 50 times, I wasn't really there, I was I was really in a complete 156 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:02,680 daze at that time, I was in a very serious blackout and from the trauma, from the shock 157 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:09,920 of the accident, I was totally wiped out but so he handcuffed me and he had me sit down 158 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:15,880 and then a patrol car came with a male and a female that threw me in the back seat of 159 00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:23,440 that car after lecturing me on something and they were driving the windows, it was nice 160 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:29,220 and warm that night, fairly balmy actually and I remember to this day how the wind was 161 00:16:29,220 --> 00:16:33,120 hitting the back of my earlobes, you know, as the car was driving and I didn't know if 162 00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:38,960 they were driving east, west, north or south, nothing, I just know that this car was moving 163 00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:44,380 but in the back seat of that car, in that condition in which I was, my hands had cuffed 164 00:16:44,380 --> 00:16:50,680 behind me and being wet from the waist down, I had, as a result of drinking, lost control 165 00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:56,840 of my blood movement for years, my poor wife had to wash my pants literally every day, 166 00:16:56,840 --> 00:17:04,840 almost except on weekends because of that and I still, in that condition, I was overcome 167 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:12,280 with an incredible sensation of lightness, of freedom and I was overcome with the feeling 168 00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:17,240 that things are going to be good in the immediate future, things are going to be different but 169 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:23,080 things are going to be good, this was really a felt experience, I mean, I felt it to my 170 00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:29,840 bones and it was, I was overcome with a sense of joy, a sense of peace that had overcome 171 00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:36,800 me and it's a peace that is not the result of a conditional ceasefire or a temporary 172 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:45,440 cessation of hostilities, it was really peace as in total armistice, the war is over and 173 00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:51,520 I lost obviously that the war is over and a new era, a new age is starting in my life, 174 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:57,360 a new age, a new chapter in my life is about to start, this did not involve, thank goodness, 175 00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:05,240 any part of my frontal cortex where the executive decisions are made, where the ego dwells, 176 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:12,640 where willpower comes into play, it was really at the bottom of the brain, most likely, most 177 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:19,800 likely I think, the amygdala, the flight or fight era or area of the brain, the reptilian 178 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:25,000 part that deals with basics, the one that makes me duck, when a rocket coming to hit 179 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:32,920 me without measuring the speed or the distance, it's just instinctive reaction to survival 180 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:39,000 and I personally believe it was survival instinct that essentially lived consciously in every 181 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:45,880 cell of my body, my blood, my brain, my liver, my kidney, my heart, every part of it was 182 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:51,000 screaming, you're killing us, you bastard, stop it, we can't go on with this, so the 183 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:55,280 decision was being made really at a visceral level, at a molecular level, the decision 184 00:18:55,280 --> 00:19:01,840 to opt for life as opposed to suicide which I was committing with every glass I paid for, 185 00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:08,360 every bottle I bought in, I was committing suicide and essentially without knowing it 186 00:19:08,360 --> 00:19:13,760 because the ego was feeling that this time survived anything, jumped in long before the 187 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:19,560 ego could react or could take mastery of the brain and make decisions and I think that 188 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:26,160 is personally, is the psychic change that dwelled within me at that moment, there's 189 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:32,440 a lady in AA that used to say that with unconditional surrender there goes the obsession to drink, 190 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:40,280 that once the alcoholic surrenders unconditionally and says no more, I'm done, then the desire 191 00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:46,320 or the obsession to drink lifts the body of the alcoholic and lifts the mind of the alcoholic 192 00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:52,040 permanently, it has left mind for certain and I believe that moment, it has left mind 193 00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:56,840 and I've never felt the desire to drink again as a result of that experience which again 194 00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:03,360 is a felt experience, pre-reflective, that did not involve any kind of rational thinking 195 00:20:03,360 --> 00:20:08,760 or logical thinking, it was felt and it was coming in from a lot of my friends who are 196 00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:13,720 believers or religious people, tell me that's the grace of God that touched you in the vaccines 197 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:18,440 of that God, whatever we call it, it doesn't really matter whether it's survival instinct 198 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:24,920 of the grace of God or nature, we're essentially sort of willing and deciding for itself that 199 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:29,880 life is better than death and that life is better than suicide and that's what happened, 200 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:35,280 I felt that it never felt like drinking, I felt like killing people and myself, I never 201 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:37,240 felt like drinking from that data. 202 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:42,480 Now the next morning when I came to, when I woke up and they took me to the Venice Police 203 00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:48,200 Station or Venice Boulevard near Culver City, they, when I woke up the next morning, my 204 00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:53,160 first, I realised what had happened, my first thought is why the heck did I take an officer, 205 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:58,360 I should have taken support, I should have taken Olympic, I should have taken Pico or 206 00:20:58,360 --> 00:21:07,480 something, you know just crazy alcoholic denial, denial at work as if I had taken Pico, I wouldn't 207 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:13,240 be an alcoholic, I mean it's a non-sequitur, it makes no sense whatsoever, drunk as drunk 208 00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:17,360 as drunk, anyway I was sentenced to a bunch of things, I'll never forget what Adrian, 209 00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:21,640 my attorney, told me, this guy was really fantastic, you know he was my drinking buddy 210 00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:26,600 and I mean I wouldn't call him an alcoholic, he didn't have anyone but he drank quite a 211 00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:34,120 bit, but he was very successful too and he told me in the West LA courthouse, there used 212 00:21:34,120 --> 00:21:39,640 to be a courthouse in West LA near Purdue, he said Ralph, you know, this attorney, city 213 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:45,020 attorney, he said I think she has nails for breakfast, she was really mean and there had 214 00:21:45,020 --> 00:21:51,000 been a case, it was made the news all over the country about a judge who went lenient 215 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:56,720 on a drunk driver and that drunk driver went ahead and killed a family of four and they 216 00:21:56,720 --> 00:22:01,320 went all over, you know, everybody turned against the judge for having gone lenient 217 00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:07,520 on that drunk driver and so that was right before my case came up and it scared the heck 218 00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:15,080 out of me, I said typical alcoholic thinking, you know, self-centered, why are the four 219 00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:20,560 of the universe inspiring to screw me over, the whole world is confined to my poor me, 220 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:27,680 poor me and so Adrian told me Ralph, I said I'm so sorry, she's really mean and she has 221 00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:33,920 your rap sheet, she has everything, all of the unsafe lane change, the reckless driving, 222 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:39,040 the wet reckless, all the DUIs, all of them on her hands, she got about eight of them 223 00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:43,440 and he said they're not going to go easy on you but he said it's going to give you plenty 224 00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:48,880 of time to sit down and think about your love, think about yourself and he said and you got 225 00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:55,240 to find out that alcohol really is but a symptom of the problem, that the problem goes much 226 00:22:55,240 --> 00:23:01,520 deeper than that, now here is the son of a gun, Ukrainian, Canadian, American lawyer, 227 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:07,960 Phil Tivich, you know, telling me that that stuff that Bill W and the other hundred men 228 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:13,600 and women discovered in 1939 from drinking and this guy, you know, he nailed it, you 229 00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:19,520 know, came to find out, you know, actually after he died that he had gone to University 230 00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:25,780 of Santa Monica, it's a psychological school, he got his PhD in psychology and has been 231 00:23:25,780 --> 00:23:30,760 working with people who are in trouble, doing lots of fantastic work, you know, and he was 232 00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:36,880 a member of SRF, self-realization fellowship and had a Buddhist memorial, he was a fantastic 233 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,640 guy, so that's what Adrian told me, he says, you know, your problem is not the bottle, 234 00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:46,480 the bottle is a better symptom of your problem, so I was sentenced to a bunch of stuff including 235 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:52,880 so I did lots of community service, did lots of work in lieu of jail and I worked, you 236 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:59,480 know, for about 60 days, literally every single day, then I had about I think 380 hours of 237 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:04,020 community service, which I did, you know, gladly and I finished those, but I was also 238 00:24:04,020 --> 00:24:11,240 sentenced to face-to-face and group meetings of drug and alcohol treatment and I was sentenced 239 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:17,820 to 18 months of Alcoholics Anonymous and had to get the court card signed at a probation 240 00:24:17,820 --> 00:24:24,560 officer here down in Van Nuys that I had to turn the papers over to, I had a guy called 241 00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:32,560 Chris at this AKB school, he was, he said bring them over, I'll take them there to the 242 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:37,320 Van Nuys court, they were right next door and I began and he asked me one time, this 243 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:42,200 Chris guy, he says Raf, you haven't been turning in your AA meeting card, I said I'll do that 244 00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:47,640 at the end, he said at the end of what, he said, you know, don't you know what the court 245 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,840 order says, I told him when I was there, I was in court when the judge sentenced me, 246 00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:56,160 he said I didn't ask that, did you read your court order, I said no, so he pulled it, he 247 00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:00,440 had it there and there it is, he said that the day that I was discharged from the county 248 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:06,000 jail from the Twin Towers, I was supposed to go straight and start attending AA meetings, 249 00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:11,360 so he gave me a meeting book and he circled a meeting, he says this is on your way home, 250 00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:16,720 you start going there and bring me the court card signed here, it was a nest and the nest, 251 00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:24,320 I had moved at that time to Roscoe and Louisa and so I figured I'll go there and you know, 252 00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:28,840 it's far away from Beverly Hills and from my customer base, I don't think any of my 253 00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:37,000 clients would be there, so I walked in there and I saw a bunch of, you know, folks with 254 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:44,320 swastikas tattooed on their necks and lots of chains hanging on the side and lots of 255 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:51,520 torn clothes and those were the ladies, you know, it's amazing, so you know, as a very 256 00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:58,400 very shallow alcoholic, you know, deep inside of which is shallow, I judge the book by its 257 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:02,320 cover, I assume that simply because they look that way, they were not like the folks at 258 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:09,480 the Polo Lounge or at, you know, whatever, that there must be very tough than this and 259 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:15,680 that and but as it turned out, those were some of the nicest, kindest, gentlest and 260 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:23,460 most trustworthy people I have ever come across in my life, people who had integrity deep 261 00:26:23,460 --> 00:26:31,480 inside their heart, who had honesty and who had gentleness and kindness all over them, 262 00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:40,320 they remember one guy, Bob M, he used to man the coffee counter and really wonderful Vietnam 263 00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:45,600 veteran, he had many years at that time, in 99, he had probably 20 years over and which 264 00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:53,200 was like an eternity for me and he told me, asked me if I could help with this lady who 265 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,040 had some leg problems, she said can you please pick her up and he gave you the address, she 266 00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:01,160 lives on Osa, she passed away many years ago, the poor soldier, he said can you please pick 267 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,000 her up and bring her to the meeting on your way in, you said she comes from the other 268 00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,360 side of Milan, you know, on your way in, stop by there, pick her up and bring her, so I 269 00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:14,080 began to bring her and she became a very kind friend, a very kind elderly woman, very very 270 00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:19,920 smart and old wobbly rebel, rebel rouser, you know, used to be a dancer when she was 271 00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:28,940 young in New York and she was really fun and she very catholic in her training and I'm 272 00:27:28,940 --> 00:27:34,960 totally, I've been since I was 15 or 16, I closed the book on that subject, you know, 273 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:40,240 but she used to hand me all kinds of literature, books that she used to read about, you know, 274 00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:45,160 which is really nice, it's wonderful stuff. Anyway, one time I told her that this AA stuff 275 00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:52,600 is not working for me, I've been coming here for 90 days and, you know, it's just not my 276 00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:58,240 cup of tea and this requires you believing in a God and holding hands and going to Lord's 277 00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:04,680 prayer and stuff, I said, that's, you know, for her. She said, I noticed you haven't raised 278 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:10,720 your hand as an alcoholic in the meetings when they ask for newcomers and you haven't 279 00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:17,560 taken any chips, you said you haven't drank for 90 days, but yeah, and so I said, so what? 280 00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:22,080 She said, well, I'll tell you what your problem is because I was really beside myself, I was 281 00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:28,280 driving without a license, mind you. Yeah, yeah, which I don't recommend to anybody, 282 00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,320 it's really very, very bad idea, but I did it, which is part of the insanity, really 283 00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:38,340 the stupidity, but also the insanity. She said, Ralph, you have a twin brother living 284 00:28:38,340 --> 00:28:43,520 inside you, his name is Ralph, but he knows he's an alcoholic and you, Mr. Ralph, who's 285 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:48,880 talking to me now, who is driving this car, you're denying him his medicine, he wants 286 00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:54,920 his drink and you're refusing to give him his drink. She said, one of two things happens 287 00:28:54,920 --> 00:29:00,960 to alcoholics when they are in that predicament. He says they will either pick up and drink 288 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,880 and she said, for people like us to drink is to die or they will commit, they will kill 289 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,680 themselves. And she said, most people don't kill themselves, most people just go and get 290 00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,840 drunk. And so she said, so I thought, so what's the solution? You said the solution is the 291 00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:19,920 steps. I said, well, what steps are you talking about? I've heard them at least a hundred 292 00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:25,040 times in those 90 days. I'll be going to meetings. I read in chapter five, every time they're 293 00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:31,560 all 12 steps, plus they're all over the wall of the otherness of the Alano club. And she 294 00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:39,160 said, they're right there. Oops, five minutes. Thank you. She said, take the steps and you'll 295 00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,920 be set free. You'll be free from that. She said, that's the solution. Then you can live 296 00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:51,360 your life calmly. And it's really amazing how easy it was. You know, I kept thinking 297 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,560 about it that day. I didn't do anything, but a couple of days after, I made sure Jean wasn't 298 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:05,080 there to see me raise my hand and I raised my hand as an alcoholic. And I jumped in with 299 00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:10,680 both feet, both feet. I took commitments in every meeting I attended. I began to attend 300 00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:17,120 meetings in Santa Monica, in West LA, in Beverly Hills, in China, Koreatown, all over the place. 301 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:22,160 Cause I worked on the other side of Mala and that was area five, which is area 93. So I 302 00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:28,360 took commitments. I began going to all kinds of meetings and began taking the work on my 303 00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:33,140 sobriety seriously. One of the things that I heard in AA, which I really believed to 304 00:30:33,140 --> 00:30:40,560 begin with since I was a kid, is that a person's morality or a person's consciousness is a 305 00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:45,520 reflection of his lifestyle and not vice versa. So it is whatever I do, that's what's going 306 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:51,360 to shape my thinking. It's not that my thinking will shape what I'm doing. And AA will say, 307 00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:56,400 you can live your life into a sober way of thinking. You cannot think your life into 308 00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:02,840 a sober way of living. And that's really essentially an old rule in sociology that was 309 00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:10,540 discovered way back in the 19th century, that a person's social being determines his consciousness 310 00:31:10,540 --> 00:31:17,360 and not vice versa. And putting the world on its feet rather than having a standing 311 00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:23,920 on its head. And to me, AA is a plan of action and it has been from day one. It is a lot 312 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:29,960 more fun when that plan of action is believed. In other words, if I conform my action with 313 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:36,120 my core beliefs, then life becomes easier. I don't have to live in cognitive dissonance 314 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:43,720 requiring therapy and medication or booze or whatever in order to live life normally. 315 00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:50,520 And AA offers a plethora of activities for people who are alcoholic and who want to live 316 00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:59,280 a useful life, to become a true productive member of society, to turn my life as an instrument 317 00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:09,200 of kindness, an instrument of health, an instrument of guidance and carrying the first step message. 318 00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:13,680 That's part of what it's all about. So I began going on panels and then had a panel of my 319 00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:19,640 own. But whenever a panel member is missing and a friend of mine who has a panel calls 320 00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:26,240 me and say, Ralph, I need an extra buddy. Can you come over? I always say yes unless 321 00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:32,480 I have a family obligation or something. But I jump and show up because it saves lives 322 00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:37,720 starting with my work. But it really saves lives. I'll never forget some incidents that 323 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:43,360 I went from time I was a GSR of a meeting in District 11 in Area 5 and we had a meeting 324 00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:52,320 on Saturday in Santa Monica. We had a fellow Class B alcoholic from I think from Colorado 325 00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:59,160 or Utah. He told us a story in that meeting about something that he did, he himself did. 326 00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:08,080 Sent at the GSR and then New York sent him to an Eastern Bloc country. This is before 327 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:13,800 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. So he had to go there. It was supposed to 328 00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:22,260 meet the lady who is a translator. She translated the first 164 pages of the big book from English 329 00:33:22,260 --> 00:33:29,040 to her native language. So they go, thank you very much. And he said he showed up in 330 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:35,000 this country. I forgot whether it was Estonia or Lithuania or some place. But he showed 331 00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:40,520 up there and he met her and she told him, I'll come back tomorrow. We'll have lunch 332 00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:45,560 on the ground floor of this hotel and then bring the manuscript with me. And so next 333 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:52,440 day she shows up and she has three or four hundred pages of the pipe material. And it's 334 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:57,760 164 pages of values and it's typed in double spaced and so on. And she said, which is the 335 00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:03,000 whole book? So I said, thank you very much. He put it in a folder and he gave her an envelope 336 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:08,440 containing a thousand dollars or two thousand whatever the New York office gave him to give 337 00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,980 her. And she said, no, thank you. I can't accept the payment. He says, well, you have 338 00:34:12,980 --> 00:34:17,520 to accept the payment. She did the work. He says, no, I've been already paid here. He 339 00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:22,840 says, how? Who paid you? She said, Ralph, he said, I live with my sister and her husband 340 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,780 is a drunk. He comes home and beats her every day. He fights with her and brings his body 341 00:34:27,780 --> 00:34:32,120 to get drunk and sometimes he slaps her. She said one time while I was at school, she had 342 00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:36,360 a high school teacher. And she said, while I was at school, he came home and he found 343 00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:42,200 the manuscript on the desk and he was reading it. When I came home, he jumped on me. He 344 00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,800 says, you're writing a book about me being a blind person. And he said, he almost told 345 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:53,000 me. She told him, no, I'm not. I'm actually translating an American book into English 346 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,720 and into our language. And I said, he didn't play that. She showed him the big book and 347 00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:02,800 he understood. And she said, as a result of having read all you read is the doctor's opinion. 348 00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:09,600 And that's what she translated. And Bob, I mean, the doctor, not not, Bill W. story. 349 00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,160 And she said, as a result of reading those two things, and then he continued reading 350 00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:18,360 the other, he stopped drinking and he stopped eating her sister. She would have been overpaid 351 00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:29,120 by alcoholics anonymous. Thank you very much for listening to me.