Good evening, everybody. My name is Todd and I'm an alcoholic.
Thank you very much Ben for asking me to come tonight.
I love this group. This group has been...you guys are so good to each other.
Like you really are there for each other. You're a great example of what Alcoholics Anonymous
does as a group and what Alcoholics Anonymous...what groups can do
within the larger AA frame and I just
appreciate you so much. When I was...well, I'll tell that story later.
My sobriety date is October 7, 2011
and so that gives me 12 and a half
years, a little more. And actually more important than that
yesterday was 655 Friday nights that I've
been sober. And I count my Friday nights because I got sober on a Friday
and it's kind of difficult if you're going to get sober to
face the weekend without drinking and using, at least for
me. And for me to be able to say that my sobriety
date is October 7, 2011 is crazy because I'm the
guy who I absolutely did not want to get sober. I came
kicking and screaming. There was no reason why I needed to
be sober. It was everything and everybody else and all the circumstances and the terrible
the things that had happened
to me. And I was a victim and you know
I would just leave me alone. In fact, if you would come over and bring me drugs and
alcohol it would probably work out better for all of us. You know, I'm the
guy that since I'm about 12 and a half I start smoking marijuana
12 and a half and I'm smoking every 15 minutes from that
point on. I mean, literally. I roll 12 joints in the morning and put them in the
back of my pocket and that's how I go to school. That's how I went to work. You know, I smoke when
I drive. I smoke when...you know, I am...and then I'm a big time smoker.
I also smoked a pack and a half of Marlboro Red Box from maybe age
14. I would drink whatever was available when I was a kid
you know, because not much was available except what we
could steal out of, you know, our parents
friends bars. My parents
really weren't drinkers. I think they had a bottle of triple sec
above the refrigerator and
sure enough we tried it. Triple secs, not good by itself.
But I always, from the time before I even
start drinking or using, from the time I'm about 6 years old, I'm the kid
that I'll go in the front yard and I will spin and spin and spin around and around
and around and around and get my head off like that and I always want to just get
out of myself that way. I always want a different feeling. And when I found
alcohol and drugs, it was
that was what I was meant for. And I was
very comfortable. I wasn't the kid that was paranoid or
worried about the police or the FBI or any of that
you know, I had no
low tolerance at all. I mean, I was able to drink and drink
and drink and drink and smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke. I didn't understand people that couldn't handle
their alcohol because I could. I don't know why and I always
wanted one more. And through my whole drinking career, that's how
it was. I mean, if I have this in my hand and that glass gets more than half empty
I am thinking about how to fill it up with the next one. I am always about
the next one. I absolutely have the obsession of more
and needing more. And you know, so
what it was like, I kind of skate by as a kid
and in my 20s, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't chaos
and that there wasn't a lot of lying by omission
and there wasn't, I mean, if I'm nine minutes late
I'm on time, you know, at that point. I wasn't really
successful in anything that I did, but I was really good at like covering up.
And you know, sure there were some nights that I spent in the drunk tank. There's
probably five or six, you know, where I get
pulled in and they throw me in for an overnight.
There was relationships that, you know, ended in turmoil because
of our drinking and using.
You know, there were people that I let down, but you know, I took my car over the
side of a freeway once and I'm
such a good boy I waited for the police to show up. And they threw me
in jail that night too. But I was basically able to skate
by because, you know, I was good to my grandma. So people thought I was a good kid.
People thought I was good. And I was social. I wasn't, it didn't make me go
run away. And all my friends were drinking and using too, so it all seemed
very, very normal. I mean, I did not think that this was out of the
ordinary or something that was abnormal in any way.
Everybody I knew was doing this. So what
happens to me is, like I say, kind of skate by
in my teens and twenties, my thirties, and
this whole time, you know, I had a belief in
a higher power that I referred to as God. But it was
not really a belief as much as it was a respect. It was a respect
because other people had this God thing. I had no
connection. I had no relationship. I had no spirituality whatsoever.
In fact, I thought spirituality was religion
and I was absolutely not a religious person, so I wasn't going to subscribe to
anything like that, you know, connection. But I did have a respect. So it's not
like I didn't, I wasn't exposed to a higher power.
I just wasn't connected. And when I turned 41,
I faced the great tragedy of my life.
And I know that that happens to everybody. Everybody comes across something
that they consider like the big thing that knocks you off balance and
you know, and I didn't know anything about the program, V alcohol, it's anonymous
when this happened. I had a solution, one solution only
and that was drinking and using. And that's really what I thought worked.
That got me away from my pain. You know, that got me away
from the memories and the, you know, it helped me
to have a shield. That was my shield. And
my great tragedy was I was in a relationship from the time I was 30
up until 41. And we
I was in a relationship with somebody who was an absolute
alcoholic and a complete speed demon. And I was just the guy that
smokes pot every 15 minutes and can handle his alcohol. You know, I'm the guy who
I had a cocaine Thursday and I had a cocaine February. You know, I was the guy
who was judging this person for all their drinking and using.
Not really even aware of how I was or
looking at myself ever. Anyhow, one Sunday night
we get into, well Sunday morning actually, we get into an
argument, an argument that lasts all day. And usually when
I would get in an argument with John, he would win every
single time. He'd win every time. But this particular day
that wasn't happening. This particular day, every time it started up
between us, I won. I got the exclamation point. You know, I got
the point across. I shut him down. You know, and I just wasn't gonna
have it anymore. I wasn't gonna have it. It was one of those and this argument lasted
all day and into the night and about 9.45 that night
he took me out in our backyard and he put a gun
to his head and he blew his brains out right in front of me. And he won the argument
that day. And I hate to say it, but the only way that an alcoholic ever wins an argument
is to hurt somebody else. It's never a win-win with an alcoholic.
Ever. I'm so glad for this program that I realize that a real win is something where I
lift you up, not where I'm lifted up myself. And then when I lift
you up, we're both raised. And if it's a win-win, then that's a win. But in this
particular case, John won by suicide. And
he really changed my life. And because I had no
connection at all with anything bigger than me, I went off the rails.
And I ran to my only solution.
You know, I upped the ante with the drugs.
I crawled into the bottle. I, you know, I lived inside the
pipe. And everything about that time was
horrible. This happened October 1, 2006.
And by December of that year, I'd lost
60 pounds. I couldn't work. My whole family was
afraid of me. I wasn't allowed over at my mother's house.
My brothers wouldn't talk to me. I had very few friends that were
coming around. Now, you know, right after the suicide, of course, everybody
was, I mean, I had 40 people at my house for two weeks. And boy was
I glad when they were gone. Because I just needed to get
loaded. And I did. And I found crystal methamphetamine.
And I just, I did everything I could to try to live in
my solution. Again, I knew nothing about this program. I knew nothing
about spirituality. So I had nothing else to go to. Only what I knew. And
by December, I, you know, my body was
starting to really fail. I mean, I
got down to about 119 pounds. And
worse than that, my mind really went wayward. I mean, I'm
the guy that, you know, I see every tree person. And
I see all the shadow people. And it all makes sense to me. And, you
know, I'm channeling different voices. And I'm listening. And I'm talking. I mean, I absolutely
know how those crazy people on the street, those homeless people, when they talk to themselves, I'm like,
"Oh, I know how that feels. I know how that is." And there was nothing, nothing,
nothing that was going to bring me back except a psychic change
that this program can offer a person. So one, so
December, January, I don't know when it was exactly. But there's
one early morning where in my boxer shorts,
I crawl up onto my roof. And I had been on the internet. You know,
I discovered a webcam chat. It was the first, you know, it was
2006. And I discovered a webcam chat. And so I was doing things on the
internet that we don't necessarily need to talk about. But I'll let your imagination just
run. Bump your nose. Anyways, I was doing
a lot of things that I wouldn't want you to Google my screen name with. And
it was because I was craving that social interaction that I had had my whole life.
But I wasn't allowing myself because I was isolating so much. And
I just needed it. And it started, you know,
to get really heavy. And I was starting to get
stopped in real life by people that I had seen on the
screen. And it got really, really, really twisted and
weird. And one Saturday morning early
in my boxer shorts, I crawl up on my roof. And I decide right then and there
I'm going to tell the whole neighborhood exactly what they've been doing
to me. And how dare them. How dare them not give me the concessions for
what I saw and what I went through. And I know you all know. And I know
you all know what a good guy I am. And, you know, and I'm orating
about how I'm a nice Jewish book. You know, I'm just a nice guy.
And how dare them. And after several minutes
of me rattling off, I hear some children
who are playing just a couple houses away. I hear this one
little girl scream up at me and she says, "You're crazy, mister." And I
lost it. I got so upset. And I ran to the very edge of my roof
and I started screaming at all these little children. And I'm telling all these
kids, "I'm crazy. You're crazy. Don't you know what your
parents are doing? Don't you know what they're doing to me? And how dare you?
You're, you know, and I'm cursing and I'm saying all kinds of
stuff. And I'm talking about their animals. They're foul-mouthed
animals who, because the dogs are talking to me at this point, you know,
I can hear words in their barks and the
dogs curse. And palm trees are mean.
But, you know, but psychosis is a bee.
And that's what I was in. And anyway, so I'm yelling at
little children and after about ten minutes, six policemen
start coming up my driveway. They're all in formation. They have their
rifles out and they are asking me to come down off the roof. And I am
livid. I am so upset. And I scream down to the cops
and I say, "Am I doing anything illegal? This is my roof. I'm not doing
anything illegal." And they agreed. I wasn't doing anything illegal.
But they were just concerned and they wanted me to come down off my roof. And it took them
twenty, maybe thirty minutes for me to come down to the edge
and get to the ladder and start down the ladder.
At which point they abruptly kicked me up, put cuffs
on me and threw me in the back of the squad car. They tricked me. And they
took me to my very first 5150. And I say my very first because there must have been
at least ten or twelve of these incidences. I've been taken to
psych wards and hospitals strapped to a gurney.
I've been put in isolation. I've been taken by ambulance.
I've been taken by police car. I've been taken by family member. I
have literally been out of my mind kicking and
screaming. And when I get to these places, you know, I try to be good because
I want to get out. They don't let you drink and do drugs in these places.
And I need to get out. So I would sort of act like I'm paying attention.
And I have to say, as much as I hated and I did, I hated being
out there. But as much as I hated it, I am so grateful because
it's there in those hospitals that for the very first time a panel
of alcoholics come in and they do an H&I panel. And it's the very first time
that I hear really what Alcoholics Anonymous is. I just
didn't know what it was before. I mean, I knew the word sober, but I never knew the word
recovery. You know, recovery is something that you do when you
upholster a couch. You know, it wasn't anything that I understood.
And what I particularly paid attention to
was, you know, a panel of alcoholics. It's three people.
They come in, they tell their stories. And they were pretty
ugly stories. You know, they were, even though, of course, you know,
mine was the worst story in the room. Of course, mine's the worst story in the room.
I've called myself the king of 5150 because I've had so many. But generally, I
speak at these meetings and I look around the room and I realize I'm not the king. But anyways,
I hear for the first time that maybe,
maybe there just might be a different way for me to be.
That perhaps I might be doing something wrong that's not
keeping me comfortable. Maybe drinking really
isn't the solution. Maybe that's the thing that's tying me up. Maybe that's
the problem. And here's what I really liked about them. They never
shook their finger at me and pointed at me and said, "You should stop drinking! Don't do
drugs! You should not do drugs! How dare you! How dare you do this! You better
stop!" You know, they didn't tell me to do anything. They just talked about themselves.
And then they said this, that they didn't think about
drinking. The obsession had been lifted. And after the story that
I just heard from each of them, I'm like, "The obsession had been lifted?"
I mean, I absolutely am obsessed with drinking
and using drugs. Period. I constantly think about it.
I'd say I constantly think about it when I don't have it, but I always have it.
So even if I have it, I'm thinking about how to get the next one. If I'm in a bar and they call
last call, I'm the first one at that bar and I'm asking for two. I'm not getting
one. I drink nine Long Island iced teas. I do not
drink beer. And when I'm being good, it's vodka.
It's vodka. So as I get older, it was kettle one because, you know,
I don't want to have a headache that Kamchatka used to give me.
But I always wanted, you know,
more. And they were saying that that obsession had been lifted.
It was hard for me to believe because I have my thoughts.
I have my racing thoughts. And I've been dealing with them by drinking alcohol
and doing drugs. So curious to me. And they said, you know, it would be great
if when you get out of here, you have an exit plan. Go to one of these meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
There's over 3,000 meetings in Los Angeles. You're the luckiest person alive
to be in this disease in L.A.
Go to your counselor. Get a book. Call central office. They told me all these things
how I can connect. And they said, oh, and this. Do it the day you walk out.
Do it the very day. Because what will happen is you don't ever want to drink
and use again after being held in this hospital. And you'll go home and you will
absolutely say that you don't want to. But as soon as you get home,
your life goes like this. And my hand goes like this.
And I'm going to call the connect and I'm going to go get alcohol because I don't know anything else.
So run to the solution. Run to the solution. I wish I did. Because
I obviously had another couple of years
in my disease. When I first discovered Alcoholics Anonymous
I can never get past 10 or 12 days for just under three years.
I stand up as a newcomer at every meeting for almost
three years. And when they say, you know, oh, we do this
not to embarrass you, but so that we can get to know you, I'm like, you all know me.
Like, you definitely know me. But, you know, I kind of credit
my sobriety today to the fact that I
was honest then. I never told you I was sober when I
wasn't sober. I never lied about that. And coupled
with, you know, when they'd say keep coming back, I kept coming back. I did.
Now, I would use or go out and I wouldn't come back that day or even
the next day or maybe even that week. But I would come back because I knew
that there was a solution here. And I was definitely at the end of my rope.
And I had no good ideas. So I start going to
AA meetings and I thought I had surrendered
because I read all these fine steps on the wall, you know, but I'm looking
at the steps and like, well, I'm absolutely powerless. I understand that.
I guess I'm unmanageable. I mean, you know, what happened and
what could something really I guess maybe something can restore me to sanity. And then step
three, that was the best, you know, turn my will
my will, the things that I want, turn it over to something bigger
than me to help make those decisions. And I was on board for
one, two and three. But that step four, that was a trick because they're going to make me read that
to somebody in step five. And I'm not going to do those two. So let's look at, you know,
and that's how I that's how I surrender. I picked and
choose what steps I was going to play with. And sure enough, I
didn't stay sober. Oh, you know, for the first year, marijuana was not going to be part of
my program. You know, I knew that I should probably stop drinking
alcohol and certainly I shouldn't be smoking crystal meth, but I never smoked drunk
kick to dogs. So, you know, the funny thing
was is the longer I kept smoking marijuana and even if I considered
that, you know, sober still was only a day or two before I
would drink or use drugs. It wasn't until I put that down that I was able
to put it all down. And like I say, it took a long time. What happened
was I started doing what I saw you were doing and I
started to mimic what you were doing. And you were reading that book with different people.
So I guess I need to read that book with different people. I wasn't I tried
to pick a sponsor, but it didn't work out. And then the second guy
I picked was a little too religious and said Jesus
was going to save me and I had to get rid of him. And, you know,
I really couldn't pick a sponsor until I
had some physical sobriety. I mean, I picked my sponsor at like
two or three months sober, the sponsor that I have today.
And he's the man that took me through the steps. He read the forwards with
me. He read The Doctor's Opinion and he read every chapter in that book.
And we had a book study where we would read a story out of the
first, second, and third editions. So I got to read all the stories with him
as well. And he really did walk me through that book. And
at 60 days sober. Well, let's go back just a little bit.
At 26 days sober. It had been three years.
And I, you know, there were people betting against me. You know, I was
so not right sized. I would stand up on chairs and scream
at people, "This is right size. You don't understand."
But at 26 days sober, I realized
that day something was different. Like the surrender was different. And it wasn't that
I surrendered to a higher power. I surrendered to what
was right. The right thing to do. The next right thing.
That was my real surrender. It wasn't having
an excuse or reason or a better idea. Or, "Oh, I know
I should." Or, "I will. I will win." Or, "If this
happens, I will do." It wasn't any of that. It was if that was the right thing
to do because I had a little bit of physical sobriety. You know, I absolutely believed
that God always lets you know exactly what the right thing is.
You know, this stuff that, "Oh, I don't know what God's will is." Well, God's will
is to help other people that are around you. We aren't born on
an island by ourselves. I was born with seven and a half billion people
in this world. And I think that I'm supposed to help my fellows.
And lift them up. And help them see light. And if I do,
if I do help you, and the light does come on in your eyes, that light
is shining on me, my life just got brighter. So, I had been
surrendering to the next right thing. The right thing was read the book with
these people. Do these steps. Really start these steps.
They come early. Stay late.
Clean those bathrooms. Pick up the sponge and do those
tables. And, you know, that's, I started doing that because
you were doing that and I knew that was the right thing to do. And on that 26th day of sobriety
when I realized that I was going to get 30 days, I was going to get
30 days. I just knew it. And, like I said, I was a cigarette
smoker for a very long time. On that 26th day after the meeting in the morning,
I was outside with my friend Jody and I lit up a cigarette and we
started talking. As soon as I took the first drag, my head said, "Todd,
you don't need those cigarettes anymore either." And rather than make an excuse,
you know, it was like November. I could have made a resolution
on January 1st. Or, you know, I'm smoking with Jody
who was a very heavy smoker and Jody really needs to quit. And if Jody
quits, maybe I'll quit and we'll support each other. Or here was
the best one. I had 18 cigarettes in my top pocket here.
When this pack is over, I will never buy them again.
I'm just going to finish this pack. They're very expensive. Rather than
have any other idea, my head said, "Todd, you don't need those cigarettes anymore
either." My hand just went like this. I took them out. I walked over to the
trash and I threw them away. And I have not had a cigarette since by some miracle
of this program and that practice of
doing right action. Just doing what is right. And, you know,
I didn't even know I was going to quit two minutes before I did. And I didn't quit. I'll tell you
what. I didn't quit. And I didn't quit drinking. And I didn't quit doing drugs. You know what I
did? I surrendered. I surrendered to what is right. And that's what makes
it possible. That's what makes it simple. You know, I hesitate
before I'm going to say easy because I know that sobriety is not
easy for a lot of people. That's only because I'm in my own way. That's only because
I'm making choices that I'm not running through something
bigger than me. And that doesn't have to be God. In fact, in the beginning
it was just, I chose nature. I chose the universe.
I chose, you know, I certainly wasn't going to be able to stop the
waves from coming up. Or to, you know, set the
sun and raise the moon. That wasn't up to me. So
I felt like that was certainly bigger than me. And that's what I chose.
And of course, you know, here's the thing about spirituality and connection.
If you are in a completely dark closet,
completely dark, and you open that door that much, not even
that much, I can't even, just that much, and let just that much light
in, you're not in a dark closet anymore. And the more you have light, for me,
you know, I have the disease of more. I want, if I feel good,
I want more of that good. I want to push that door open a little bit more.
I want to see more of what that is. And my higher power
has evolved into a comfortable, easy, simple
God that is as important as everybody
else's. And that's one thing I really, really love about this program. That
you know, as soon as I say God, everybody has a different picture, a different idea.
And what you think is just as important as what I think, even if you think
it doesn't exist, it's exactly as important as mine. I sort of feel
with spirituality and higher power that if that were a
blanket, every single one of us gets to carry a single thread. So my
thread is not more important than your thread. It's all part of the blanket. And
you know, my thread might be different colors than your thread, or
it might have a different shape than your thread. But it's just as
viable and just as important. And for so long as I try
to seek what that is, I'm in the know.
For so long as I try, I don't have to figure out higher
power and God. And I never will. I never will. I just have to
continue to seek and ask and be close to and let and get out of the way
from. And say you first. You go first. In fact, I was sitting
up and I said, okay, God, go stand there so I can stand right with you, you know.
And my spirituality is,
well, my spiritual awakening was that I stopped levitating, you know. I
was levitating before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I stopped
levitating. My spirituality and connection is certainly real and certainly
up there, but my feet are firmly planted on this Earth.
You know, that make no bones about it. I am not some
giant guru that thinks I'm floating on air. I am
real world spirituality. It is being used and
I am being used and it is working with and through me. And
it's not anything that I have to like tell anybody that, oh, this is
how it is. You must believe me. No, it's just something that
comes with me. I mean, the greatest gift that Alcoholics Anonymous has given me
is definitely a connection with spirit. And, I mean, that's the key to
the kingdom for me. And, you know, the keys to this kingdom,
I've been given the keys to the kingdom, but I got to tell you, those keys will get
awful rusty if I don't use them to help set other people free.
If I don't carry this message that I have found to other people,
what good is it? And if I can't help you
see something inside yourself, you don't need to see it in me.
And I don't need to go around proving to anyone that I'm sober. I go
home at night and I put my head on the pillow. And I know. But if
you can see it within yourself, that's what I want to help, you know,
manufacture. And I got to tell you, I've been gifted with
a lot of wonderful commitments in Alcoholics Anonymous.
But one of the greatest things that I got to do was
at 60 Days Sober go to the H&I group in the San Fernando
Valley and volunteer my time. Because that's where I found the message and I wanted to carry
the message of Alcoholics the way that it was carried to me. So I wanted to go on
panels and I went to the H&I meeting and
it was different then. Now they have panels on tables. But before
they used to call them from the podium and they had said
I thought that they were asking people to speak on a panel. And he said Tuesday
and nobody raised their hand. And I was like, nobody raised their hand? Okay, well I'm
over. I can speak on Tuesday. And they came over and they ran a little sheet to me and they
had given me my own panel. I didn't know I only had 60 days. And all my
friends came up to me and said, oh no, you can't do that. You have to have six months and you can't
do that. And the chairperson of that particular panel looked at me and she said,
you know what, kid, we need you. And we're going to take a chance on you and I'm going to let you have the panel.
You're just going to mirror somebody else for one or two months and then you can have your own panel.
And thank God she did because I have been sober ever since. And
I had that panel and I started to come
early and help pack the books. And the next thing you know, the next year I was the literature fund
chair. And then suddenly I was the co-chair
of the whole H&I program and soon the director, the director
in charge of 150 plus
panels in jails and institutions every month. The guy
that was standing on the roof screaming and yelling at children and being taken into
those places and being held strapped to a gurney. That was
the guy that was in charge for a little while. That's one thing that
Alcoholics Anonymous really does well. It transforms people
in amazing ways and makes them so
comfortable. And I have to tell you, the obsession has been lifted
long lifted long ago. And the only time I think about
drinking or using is when I'm at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and talking about
it. And I'm protected there because I'm right in the middle. Right in the middle.
I don't think I've ever had a bad day in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've had some bad moments.
You know, bad things have happened. You know, life is life and bad things have happened.
There are no bad days in AA. There are only good days and
great days. And a good day is I wake up in the morning
and I go to my meeting. I go to work.
I talk to an alcoholic or two. You know, things go okay at work.
I have a nice lunch. You know, I go home, watch a little
TV, have dinner, connect with some friends, what have you. I go to sleep
and I didn't drink that day. And boy, that's a good day. But a great day.
A great day in Alcoholics Anonymous is when I wake up
in the morning and my car doesn't start. I'm going to be late to work. I might not even get to work.
I've got to figure out how to get to work. I'll call them. They're upset that I have to get there.
When I finally get there, everything at work goes wrong. And people are yelling at me
and I feel like I've let somebody down and
I get a call later and my brother dies that day. And I'm
devastated when I go home and I don't eat and
I'm crying and I go home and I put my head on the pillow and
I didn't drink. And that's a great day in Alcoholics Anonymous because
it doesn't matter what your circumstances are in this program. You
don't have to drink ever again if you don't want to. And even if you
want to, you don't have to. And I had to before knowing
what this program was. I absolutely had to. And that's
gone. I am relieved. You know, I am so grateful.
So grateful to be standing here, 40 pounds,
too sober, and have my work life and
my family life and my home life and my friend life and
my relationship with me. I have a relationship
with myself. I like myself. And I'm comfortable with myself.
And I am not first. I do ask God to go first.
And it works. It really works. It really does.
I want to thank everybody for being here tonight. I really appreciate being
asked to speak. And when I thank you, I don't thank you just
for myself, but I thank you truly from the bottom of my
mother's heart. Because if you could see what her life is today
because she has a sober son, thank you so much for being here.