1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,960 Well, I'm Brent, I'm an alcoholic. 2 00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:02,800 - Hi guys. 3 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:08,480 - I'm glad to be here, thank you Ben for asking me. 4 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:12,360 I was here for the first time about a month ago 5 00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:16,720 or so with John, and I left the meeting 6 00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:21,720 as we were driving back to Palm Springs, just in a high. 7 00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:26,240 I couldn't believe how friendly everybody was. 8 00:00:26,240 --> 00:00:29,200 And I don't think there was one person 9 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:33,600 who didn't recognize me as some not a regular 10 00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:36,960 at this meeting and came up and shook my hand 11 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:39,080 or gave me a hug and welcomed me. 12 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:42,200 And I just thought it was amazing 13 00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:44,800 that that doesn't happen at every meeting. 14 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:48,200 And just the idea that everyone was so friendly 15 00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:53,200 and open arm, yeah, I left here just so excited. 16 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:57,780 And when Ben called me and asked if I would come, 17 00:00:57,780 --> 00:00:59,880 I said, immediately, I said, yes, 18 00:00:59,880 --> 00:01:02,320 I wanted to come back to this group. 19 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,960 And it's, as you probably know, 20 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:09,300 this group's a little different than most AA groups. 21 00:01:09,300 --> 00:01:11,160 You know, you have some traditions 22 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:13,080 that aren't at every group. 23 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,440 And I just thought they were great traditions 24 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:17,680 when they were explained to me, 25 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:20,960 the idea that we have to dress up and show respect. 26 00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:22,960 I thought, wow, that's cool. 27 00:01:22,960 --> 00:01:27,440 So anyway, enough of that, I'm glad to be here. 28 00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:28,880 Okay, we'll start out. 29 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:33,240 I had my first drink when I was 17 years old. 30 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,880 Until that time, I grew up in a really small town 31 00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:39,900 up by Mount St. Helens in Washington State. 32 00:01:39,900 --> 00:01:43,680 The town was like 500 people 33 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,920 and I grew up on a farm 10 miles outside of town. 34 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:50,940 So it was a real rural area. 35 00:01:50,940 --> 00:01:53,960 I would, for a long time, I made up stories 36 00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:56,960 so I could blame my parents for what went wrong. 37 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,480 That was just bull because my parents were fine people. 38 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:06,400 The only problem I had was 39 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,580 my father was from the old country. 40 00:02:08,580 --> 00:02:14,480 He's Finnish and the Finns are very traditional. 41 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:18,040 There's only one way to do things and that was his way. 42 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:21,640 And that wasn't always the way I wanted to behave. 43 00:02:21,640 --> 00:02:25,480 And so there was some push-pull and arguments 44 00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:27,600 and stuff as I was growing up. 45 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,900 But there was no abuse or anything. 46 00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:34,080 All of that I made up in my mind 47 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,960 so I could have an excuse to misbehave. 48 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:41,960 But none of my bad behavior came from my family situation. 49 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:47,520 It was all invented in myself. 50 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:52,520 So when I was 17 years old, I had been a pretty good kid. 51 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,840 Had swore that I was never gonna drink 52 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:58,000 because in our little town, there was a town everything. 53 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,160 There was a town drunk, there was a town whore, 54 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:03,920 there was a town this, yeah. 55 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:07,760 And if you got that name, it never went away. 56 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:09,880 And so I saw that growing up 57 00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:13,560 and so I didn't wanna have one of those names. 58 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:16,880 So I wanted to be a good kid and I was. 59 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:20,240 And so a couple of weeks before graduation, 60 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:24,480 my best friend Jimmy and two other friends, Dick and Larry, 61 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:27,080 I was like the last one in our group 62 00:03:27,080 --> 00:03:30,120 that was gonna graduate that hadn't gotten drunk. 63 00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:34,120 And so they decided it was time for Brent to get drunk. 64 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:38,320 So they took me out in Jimmy's 1954 Chevy 65 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:43,320 with a bottle of vodka and a six pack of orange crush. 66 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:47,920 And we drove out into the hills somewhere 67 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,280 and they told me you take a swig of the vodka 68 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:55,040 and then drink some orange crush 69 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:57,080 and they told me that was a screwdriver. 70 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:01,040 So that's what I did and sure enough, I got drunk. 71 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:05,320 And what was amazing about that was now I had grown up, 72 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:07,840 actually my best friend Jimmy, 73 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:12,840 his birthday was August 9th, my birthday is August 7th. 74 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:17,480 So I had grown up like from birth knowing these kids. 75 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:21,200 I mean, our moms, Jim and my mom would have our birthdays 76 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:25,600 usually like on the 5th or 6th of August together. 77 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,920 And the other two friends in the car, 78 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:31,000 I had started first grade with. 79 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:34,240 So these were people that I had known forever. 80 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:35,600 Our parents knew each other, 81 00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:37,520 our grandparents knew each other. 82 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:40,840 But what happened that night was the first time 83 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:43,200 I ever felt like I really belong. 84 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:45,480 Now these were people I'd known from birth 85 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:48,000 but I always felt like an outsider. 86 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,280 I always felt like I was more where they weren't looking in 87 00:04:52,280 --> 00:04:53,200 and observing. 88 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,560 I never felt a part of until that night. 89 00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:00,040 And I just thought, wow, I gotta do this again. 90 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:03,040 Well, I did again and again and again. 91 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:07,400 Now I was fortunate enough that right after college 92 00:05:07,400 --> 00:05:09,800 or right after graduation from high school, 93 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:13,400 I went to college and coming from that very small town, 94 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:16,320 there were 45 of my graduating class. 95 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:20,680 I realized real quick when I got to college 96 00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:24,280 that I was way behind what the kids from Seattle 97 00:05:24,280 --> 00:05:27,280 and Tacoma and Spokane, the big cities, 98 00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:29,040 they had learned all kinds of things 99 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:30,880 that we weren't taught in our school. 100 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,600 And so I realized I was gonna have to study. 101 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:36,760 And so my freshman year, that's pretty much all I did. 102 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:39,680 I just studied, didn't party, didn't drink, 103 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:43,560 just I thought I gotta do this or I'm gonna fuck out. 104 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:48,040 Well, for those of you who have gone to college and stuff, 105 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:50,640 pretty soon you figure out the system. 106 00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:54,080 And by the end of my freshman year, I knew the system. 107 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,360 So I got fairly good grades my freshman year. 108 00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:00,240 And from then on, I just started sliding 109 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:01,400 'cause I figured it out. 110 00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:04,080 And the summer after my freshman year, 111 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:06,040 I got a job in a paper mill. 112 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:10,040 And I was one of the only people in that paper mill 113 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:13,880 that summer that wasn't a full-time employee. 114 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,320 They were all, that was their careers, their jobs. 115 00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:20,240 Well, they were all hearty drinkers and partiers. 116 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:22,920 And I started, started with them that summer. 117 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:26,120 And by the time I went back to school my sophomore year, 118 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:29,760 I loved to party, I loved to drink, and that's what I did. 119 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:32,640 And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here tonight 120 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:34,520 on my drunk-a-log or anything. 121 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:38,240 But what happened was I came from that small town 122 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:41,560 from good people, and I started living a life 123 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:42,960 that was full of shame. 124 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:45,880 I started doing things that I knew were wrong, 125 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:49,000 but if I drank enough, it was okay to do them. 126 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:52,400 And that just continued on and on and on. 127 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:57,000 Now, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm gay. 128 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,960 And yeah, (laughs) 129 00:06:59,960 --> 00:07:03,440 and so there was, and we're talking, 130 00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:05,920 I graduated high school in 1963. 131 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:08,280 So there was that shame of, you know, 132 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:11,240 there was no gay lib there back then. 133 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:14,400 You know, if you were gay, you were considered, you know, 134 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:17,840 like there was a town queer in our town, you know, 135 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:19,160 and I didn't wanna be that. 136 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:21,640 But so anyway, there was the shame of that. 137 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,600 And then add the alcohol and the shame of how I was living, 138 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:28,760 lying, cheating, you know, always, always looking 139 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:31,920 for the fastest, easiest, softest way, 140 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:34,320 never wanting to really put in the work. 141 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:37,920 And that led to all kinds of dire consequences, 142 00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:39,000 as you can imagine. 143 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,240 Now, I guess the worst things I didn't, you know, 144 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,400 I didn't serve time in a penitentiary. 145 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:51,000 I served two separate nights in the drunk tank. 146 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:52,680 That was the closest I ever got 147 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:57,680 to really horrible law enforcement consequences. 148 00:07:57,680 --> 00:08:00,840 But it just kept getting worse and worse. 149 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:04,240 And my solution to everything, any problems, 150 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,040 any illnesses or anything was just to drink more 151 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:07,880 and get through it. 152 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:09,880 And I was lucky, you know, 153 00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:12,600 this was back in the late '60s by then. 154 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:17,400 I graduated college, I had moved to Chicago 155 00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:22,400 from that little town and went to graduate school 156 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,080 and just kept partying. 157 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:27,240 And I guess it wasn't so bad that I wasn't, 158 00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:29,160 I was still able to achieve. 159 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,240 And by the time I was 27 years old, 160 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:36,040 I had like a job I couldn't even have ever dreamed of 161 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:38,160 coming from where I came from. 162 00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:42,360 At 27 years old, I was the human resources director 163 00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:45,120 of Playboy Enterprises in Chicago. 164 00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,240 Yeah, I'd like to say that, you know. 165 00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:52,320 It's almost like saying I was star of a film or something. 166 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:57,160 But with that job, my office was right next 167 00:08:57,160 --> 00:08:59,600 to the Playboy Club in Chicago. 168 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:03,760 With lunches came free martinis, 169 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:06,040 free happy hour after work. 170 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:09,680 And I had also been elected at that time, 171 00:09:09,680 --> 00:09:12,280 the vice president of the Chicago 172 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:14,920 Personnel Management Association. 173 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:19,760 So everything in town was a free drink, everywhere I went. 174 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:22,160 Well, at 27, I got that job. 175 00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:25,160 And by the time I was 30, I had lost it. 176 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:26,200 It was all gone. 177 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:30,320 I went from being an executive at Playboy Enterprises 178 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:34,280 to being a doorman in a hotel and a busboy in a deli. 179 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:37,720 Anything I could do to just keep drinking, 180 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:38,800 that was the point. 181 00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:42,520 Make enough money to be able to go to the bars. 182 00:09:42,520 --> 00:09:45,440 I wasn't a home isolated drinker. 183 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:48,560 I've always been a social person. 184 00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:52,760 And so I was what back in those days they called a bar fly. 185 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:56,680 And I found a bar, I had moved back to Seattle at that point 186 00:09:56,680 --> 00:09:57,600 from Chicago. 187 00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:01,520 And there was this bar down in the bad part of town 188 00:10:01,520 --> 00:10:03,280 that had happy hour. 189 00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:06,160 It was a tavern, not a bar, that just served beer and wine. 190 00:10:06,160 --> 00:10:08,920 But they had happy hour from four until six. 191 00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:12,680 And from four to six, they served 10 cent schooners. 192 00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:15,040 I get a kick out of, sometimes you go to a meeting 193 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,520 and when they pass the hat, they'll say, 194 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:19,720 remember the price of your last drink, 195 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:21,000 throw that in the basket. 196 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:21,920 (laughing) 197 00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:24,360 And I think, okay, here's a dime. 198 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:26,480 But anyway, from four to six, 199 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:29,000 I could drink beer, 10 cents a glass. 200 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:31,800 From six to eight, just down the street from that bar 201 00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:35,000 was another happy hour that served dollar pitchers. 202 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:38,080 So I moved from the 611 that was sitting with the bar 203 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,840 to the 2024 and drank pitchers. 204 00:10:40,840 --> 00:10:44,840 And then from eight to 10, I could go to Mr. Larry's 205 00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:46,920 and drink martinis for the price, 206 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:49,680 double martinis for the price of singles. 207 00:10:49,680 --> 00:10:52,160 Well, this is how I lived for about three years, 208 00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:55,240 every night, four to six, six to eight, eight to 10. 209 00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:56,720 And by 10, I was blotted. 210 00:10:56,720 --> 00:10:59,040 And I figured I could get drunk. 211 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,640 And I mean really drunk for like six or eight bucks a night. 212 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:03,960 Can you imagine that? 213 00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:06,360 That's what a drink costs now, you know? 214 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:08,860 But anyway, so what happened was, 215 00:11:08,860 --> 00:11:11,400 like I said, I still work 216 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:14,360 and I was getting sicker and sicker. 217 00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:17,880 And I was getting sick and I couldn't drink my way through it 218 00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:20,520 I'd always been able to get a cold, get a flu, 219 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:22,920 whatever, just keep drinking, it'd go away. 220 00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:23,960 Couldn't do it anymore. 221 00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:26,160 And finally, some of my friends and coworkers said, 222 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:28,920 "Brent, you have to go to a doctor." 223 00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:30,440 My skin, you could do this 224 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:32,520 and layers of skin would fall off. 225 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:35,240 My fingernails were growing out like washboards 226 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:38,120 and I had a fever that wouldn't go away. 227 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:40,520 So finally I did, I went to a doctor, 228 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:43,480 I told him my symptoms and he sat there and he says, 229 00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:45,240 "Well, I don't know what's wrong with you." 230 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:48,520 He says, "Sounds like you're either in the advanced stages 231 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:53,400 "of syphilis or you've got some rare form of scarlet fever." 232 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:56,800 Or he says, "This could be some sort of liver disease." 233 00:11:56,800 --> 00:11:57,960 He says, "Do you drink?" 234 00:11:57,960 --> 00:11:59,980 And I said, "Oh, a little." 235 00:11:59,980 --> 00:12:04,400 And he says, "Well, I thought I'm gonna take some blood tests 236 00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:05,720 "to find out what's wrong with you." 237 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:08,680 And he says, "In case it is something with your liver, 238 00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:11,200 "don't drink until I get those tests back." 239 00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:14,320 I said, "Okay, when you getting them tests back?" 240 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:16,720 And he says, "Well, it'll take a week." 241 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:18,760 He says, "When you leave, make an appointment 242 00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:21,560 "with my receptionist, you come back in a week." 243 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:22,400 I said, "Okay." 244 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,420 So I left, that was February 14th in Seattle. 245 00:12:25,420 --> 00:12:27,360 Well, in February in Seattle, 246 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:29,220 that rain comes off Puget Sound 247 00:12:29,220 --> 00:12:31,080 and it has little bits of ice in it 248 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:33,760 and it blows directly at you, 249 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:36,600 doesn't fall down, it comes at you. 250 00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:37,920 And if you've got a fever, 251 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:40,800 those raindrops just sting like hell. 252 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:44,680 And I was walking home and I had a car, didn't work. 253 00:12:44,680 --> 00:12:46,120 Didn't matter that it didn't work 254 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,120 'cause my license wasn't current, 255 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,000 nor could I afford insurance, 256 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,160 nor were the license plates current. 257 00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:55,040 So I had a car, big deal. 258 00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:57,720 But that's how I lived, you could probably identify. 259 00:12:57,720 --> 00:12:59,320 Anyway, on the way home, 260 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,520 a little voice somewhere in my head said, 261 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,500 "You know, you've been out of control for a long time. 262 00:13:05,500 --> 00:13:08,680 "Maybe now something, time to do something about it." 263 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:11,740 Well, by the time I got home, I told myself, 264 00:13:11,740 --> 00:13:14,520 "Yes, you've got to do something about this." 265 00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:16,920 So at the time in Seattle, 266 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:20,120 there was a publication called the Seattle Gay News. 267 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:24,460 And in it, I had seen something about Gay AA. 268 00:13:24,460 --> 00:13:28,040 So I get home, I called the Seattle Gay Community Center 269 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,360 and this nice lady answered the phone 270 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:34,640 and I said, "Hello, can I have your alcohol division?" 271 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:36,560 She said, "What are you talking about?" 272 00:13:36,560 --> 00:13:39,280 I says, "Well, I saw something in the Seattle Gay News 273 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:40,880 "about Gay AA." 274 00:13:40,880 --> 00:13:42,280 And she goes, "Oh." 275 00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:44,720 She says, "No, we don't have an alcohol division." 276 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,680 She says, "But I have some names here of people 277 00:13:47,680 --> 00:13:50,720 "that belong to Alcoholics Anonymous 278 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,020 "and they have given us their phone numbers 279 00:13:53,020 --> 00:13:55,760 "and you can call them and they can help." 280 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:57,520 She gave me three phone numbers. 281 00:13:57,520 --> 00:13:59,280 Well, I called the first one 282 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:02,120 and a guy named Robert answered his phone. 283 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:04,920 And so I told him where I got the number, 284 00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,600 why I was calling, he says, "Oh, fine, where do you live?" 285 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:09,940 I told him, he says, "Okay, I'll be by your house 286 00:14:09,940 --> 00:14:12,660 "at eight o'clock, there's a meeting at 830, 287 00:14:12,660 --> 00:14:14,160 "a few blocks from where you live. 288 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:16,000 "I'll pick you up, we'll go to a meeting." 289 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:17,180 Whoa, okay. 290 00:14:17,180 --> 00:14:20,720 So I'm thinking, wow, did I make a commitment here? 291 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:23,280 Now, I lived in squalor, I didn't. 292 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:26,000 So I started trying to clean up my house 293 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:30,760 and clean myself up. 294 00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:34,200 And I'm kind of thinking, 'cause I hadn't had any dates 295 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,120 or anything like that for a long time, 296 00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:39,440 that wasn't important, the drinks were important. 297 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,200 But I'm thinking, ooh, gentleman caller. 298 00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:47,800 So anyway, comes eight o'clock, I wasn't quite ready yet. 299 00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:50,060 But anyway, I'll get to that in a minute. 300 00:14:50,060 --> 00:14:52,480 I opened the door, standing on my porch, 301 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:55,680 and I say this with all the love in my heart that I got, 302 00:14:55,680 --> 00:15:00,680 was the ugliest homosexual I had ever seen in my life. 303 00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:03,680 So, so much for gentleman caller. 304 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,360 So anyway, I said, "I'm Brent, hi, Robert." 305 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:09,640 I said, "I'm not quite ready yet, make yourself at home." 306 00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:13,120 And I went in the bathroom to try to get myself together. 307 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,160 And he says, "Can I get a drink of water?" 308 00:15:15,160 --> 00:15:16,000 And I go, "Yeah." 309 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,320 And he goes in the kitchen and he calls out, 310 00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:20,040 he says, "Is it your birthday?" 311 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:24,400 Now, this was February 14th, my birthday is August 2nd. 312 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:27,120 And I said, "No, why do you ask?" 313 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:30,200 He says, "Well, there's this birthday cake in here." 314 00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:33,840 Well, I had had half of a birthday cake sitting on my 315 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:38,300 kitchen counter from August 2nd till February 14th. 316 00:15:38,300 --> 00:15:41,400 That just, I bring that, that's how I live, okay? 317 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,400 So anyway, Robert took me to my first meeting. 318 00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:48,400 And at that meeting, they start talking about, 319 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:50,340 well, oh, I have to bring this up. 320 00:15:50,340 --> 00:15:52,880 That first meeting was a candlelight meeting 321 00:15:52,880 --> 00:15:54,600 in the basement of a church. 322 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:58,160 And so they, do any of you old enough to remember 323 00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:00,720 that they used to have those candles that were like 324 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:05,720 in red glass bowls with white plastic fishnet around them? 325 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:06,840 - Oh yeah. 326 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:09,600 - Okay, well, that's the candles they had up 327 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:11,640 and down the table and they lit them. 328 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:15,560 And I thought, oh, how nice, this is like a cocktail lounge. 329 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:18,360 They're trying to make us feel at home. 330 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:21,040 And they lit the candles, turned the lights out 331 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:21,880 and had the meeting. 332 00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:24,720 Well, one of the few things I remember hearing 333 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:27,280 at that meeting was they said, take a spot. 334 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:29,360 You know, they talked about sponsorship and they said, 335 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:31,640 make sure it's somebody you're not attracted to. 336 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:33,320 Well, there was Robert. 337 00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:36,320 So there was my first sponsor. 338 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:39,560 And they also said, go to meetings, clean house 339 00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:41,360 and don't drink in between meetings. 340 00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:42,320 Well, that's funny. 341 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:44,660 So anyway, I asked, on the way home, 342 00:16:44,660 --> 00:16:46,600 I asked Robert to be my sponsor. 343 00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:48,800 I got home and the next, he said, 344 00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:50,600 well, I'll pick you up tomorrow. 345 00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:52,560 I said, yeah, fine, meeting tomorrow. 346 00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:55,720 Well, he picked me up every day for a week or two. 347 00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:57,200 Finally, one day I wasn't ready 348 00:16:57,200 --> 00:16:58,520 and he came in the house. 349 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,560 And he goes, wow, your place is together. 350 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:02,400 What happened? 351 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,480 And I said, well, they said, go to meetings, 352 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:07,040 don't drink in between meetings and clean house. 353 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:08,640 So I've been cleaning house. 354 00:17:08,640 --> 00:17:10,560 And he goes, no, no, that's not it. 355 00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:13,000 It's nice your house is clean, 356 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:14,480 but that's not what they mean. 357 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:16,680 Well, anyway, just a note about Robert. 358 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:18,040 People would ask me, you know, 359 00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:20,720 as I'm going to my first meetings, do you have a sponsor? 360 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:21,560 And I go, yeah. 361 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:22,400 I go, who? 362 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:23,220 And I go, Robert. 363 00:17:23,220 --> 00:17:24,440 And they go, oh, crazy Robert? 364 00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:27,680 And I go, well, yeah, Robert. 365 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,640 Well, come to find out, yeah, Robert was crazy. 366 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:34,760 But Robert was only 13 months sober at that time. 367 00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:37,880 And Robert was already doing cold calls. 368 00:17:37,880 --> 00:17:40,080 He was already doing service. 369 00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:42,720 He was taking me to meetings every night. 370 00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:44,240 You know, he might've been crazy, 371 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:46,640 but he knew something I didn't know. 372 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:49,400 And that was how not to drink one day at a time. 373 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:51,880 So I am, I mean, to this day. 374 00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:56,040 Now that first meeting was February 14th, 1980, 375 00:17:56,040 --> 00:17:58,080 and I have not had a drink since. 376 00:17:58,080 --> 00:17:59,800 So I am, you know, I, 377 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,440 there's no way I can express my gratitude towards Robert 378 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:05,560 and those people at that meeting. 379 00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:07,960 Now so much has happened since then. 380 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:09,420 I'm 79 years old. 381 00:18:09,420 --> 00:18:11,840 I'm going to be 80, or I'm 78. 382 00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:15,840 I'm going to be 79 August 2nd, next Saturday. 383 00:18:15,840 --> 00:18:19,160 So I've had a lot of years to fumble around 384 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:21,040 in this thing they call sobriety. 385 00:18:21,040 --> 00:18:23,000 And I've been fortunate enough 386 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,000 that I got a career back together. 387 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:28,360 I got a career that lasted long enough 388 00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:30,280 that I actually get a little bit, 389 00:18:30,280 --> 00:18:34,760 teeny little pension check in the mail every month, amazing. 390 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:39,760 I found a relationship at a couple of years sober. 391 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:43,240 I met a very decent man called Jim. 392 00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:46,440 And Jim and I had a 21 year relationship. 393 00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:49,000 He wasn't in the program, but he didn't drink. 394 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:52,120 And we had a wonderful relationship. 395 00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,580 The last, Jim got diagnosed with a terminal illness 396 00:18:55,580 --> 00:18:58,520 and the last three years were pretty rough. 397 00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:00,320 But because I was sober, 398 00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:03,160 I was able to handle that one day at a time. 399 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:05,120 Have these lights come on and I've not, 400 00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:06,520 oh, no, you got a light minute. 401 00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:07,360 Oh, okay. 402 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:10,000 You know, I was able to handle that 403 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,000 like a responsible adult should handle it. 404 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,200 Before sobriety, I would have just fled. 405 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:17,400 I wouldn't have dealt with someone who was dying 406 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:19,080 and what comes with that. 407 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:22,180 Anyway, so we had a good life. 408 00:19:22,180 --> 00:19:24,360 At that point, I was living in the Bay Area 409 00:19:24,360 --> 00:19:27,320 and like I say, got my career back together. 410 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:28,880 It was a wonderful life. 411 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:30,920 And my home group at that time, 412 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:33,840 I'd had the same home group for 14 years. 413 00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:36,800 And we met on Saturday nights at 8.30. 414 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:40,000 And Jim happened to die Saturday afternoon. 415 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,720 And I called a good friend of mine, John, 416 00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:44,520 and said, Jim passed away today. 417 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:45,800 John came right over. 418 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,400 And when somebody dies, said, oh, there's a lot of shit 419 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:51,880 you gotta go through, you gotta call the coroner 420 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:53,320 and the this and the that. 421 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,320 Anyway, by the time they took Jim's body away, 422 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:58,040 it was about 8.50. 423 00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:00,040 John said to me, what do you wanna do now? 424 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:01,760 And I said, let's go to the meeting. 425 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:06,760 Now, I was too shook up to share and stuff like that. 426 00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:11,000 But as the meeting was closing, Linda came over to me. 427 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,080 She was a regular to me and she says, you okay? 428 00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:16,000 'Cause I usually shared at meetings. 429 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:18,000 And I said, yeah, I said, Jim died today. 430 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:18,840 And I walked out. 431 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,200 Well, the next day, it was like living 432 00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,000 on a little house on the prairie. 433 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:27,080 The next day, people were at my door with casseroles, 434 00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:30,120 with everything, you know, what can we do for you? 435 00:20:30,120 --> 00:20:31,080 Do you need this? 436 00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:32,120 Do you need that? 437 00:20:32,120 --> 00:20:36,720 And I mean, it was the most incredible return of goodwill 438 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:38,840 that I ever experienced in my life. 439 00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:42,360 And I mean, I had seen that before it happened to me 440 00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:44,800 because I was sober quite a while by then. 441 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,000 But when it's coming your way, 442 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:49,080 you have no idea how it fills your heart. 443 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:50,880 It's just unbelievable. 444 00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:53,480 And all this was with no strings attached. 445 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:56,820 And some of it was from people that I didn't really know, 446 00:20:56,820 --> 00:20:59,760 just enough to say hi or nod at a meeting. 447 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,800 But there they were at my door asking what they could do. 448 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:04,040 I never felt alone. 449 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:06,280 I never felt, you know, a lot of people, 450 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,300 their grief is so dark and so awful. 451 00:21:09,300 --> 00:21:12,640 That didn't happen to me 'cause everybody rallied around me 452 00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:13,760 and made life great. 453 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:16,640 Well, shortly after that, I moved to New York. 454 00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:18,360 I'd always wanted to live in New York. 455 00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:21,600 When Jim was dying, he said, "Go to New York." 456 00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:23,000 He didn't wanna move to New York. 457 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:24,120 "Go to New York." 458 00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:25,360 Well, I said, "No, I won't." 459 00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:26,520 Well, I did. 460 00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:29,240 I ended up, I lived in New York for seven years. 461 00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:30,280 And it was wonderful. 462 00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:32,980 But I gotta tell you how this program works. 463 00:21:32,980 --> 00:21:35,920 I was sharing this with my dinner companions tonight. 464 00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:38,400 At one point while I was in New York, 465 00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:39,560 I had bought a condo. 466 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:43,520 And when I got there, my homeowners and my taxes 467 00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:46,440 were around five, 600 a month, which I could afford. 468 00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,640 Well, six, seven years later, 469 00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:51,880 that had gone to 16, 17, 1800 a month. 470 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:53,200 I couldn't afford it anymore. 471 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:54,520 I was running out of money. 472 00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,640 I had retired and I had to put it up for sale. 473 00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:59,740 So I was trying to sell my condo 474 00:21:59,740 --> 00:22:01,700 because I was running out of money 475 00:22:01,700 --> 00:22:03,980 and starting to get more worried every day 476 00:22:03,980 --> 00:22:06,920 because the market was not going up, it was going down. 477 00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,060 Anyway, during this time, 478 00:22:09,060 --> 00:22:13,020 I had become sponsored to this woman who was 40 years old. 479 00:22:13,020 --> 00:22:16,040 And at that point, she was 20 years sober. 480 00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:18,520 She had gotten sober at 20. 481 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:20,760 And after she got sober, 482 00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,720 she was diagnosed with extreme epilepsy. 483 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:29,040 And during her 20 years of sobriety, before I met her, 484 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,200 she had had seven brain surgeries 485 00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:36,160 to try to stop this epilepsy, these seizures. 486 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:37,440 And none of it had worked. 487 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,160 And I'm on the bus going to a meeting that day, 488 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:43,320 just beside myself and how I'm gonna go to the meeting 489 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,280 and share how life's not fair. 490 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:46,480 I'm running out of money. 491 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:47,720 I can't sell my place. 492 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:49,560 Well, I get a call from her. 493 00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,800 She was calling me from the hospital. 494 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:53,880 She had had a seizure on the subway 495 00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,720 and they had come and taken her to the hospital. 496 00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:58,400 And the doctors had told her 497 00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,240 they were gonna take her off of all of her meds 498 00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:05,600 and keep her in the hospital for a week to watch her seize. 499 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,360 They wanted to watch her for a week, have seizures, 500 00:23:08,360 --> 00:23:11,240 so they could figure out what was going wrong 501 00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,720 and what they might be able to do for her. 502 00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:14,640 Well, let me tell you, 503 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,440 when you're just worried about some little shit thing, 504 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:19,680 like not having any money, 505 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:24,200 and somebody calls you and tells you about a real problem, 506 00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,320 that's how this program works. 507 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,360 All of a sudden, that meant nothing to me anymore. 508 00:23:29,360 --> 00:23:31,200 And sure enough, the condo sold. 509 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,600 Not for what I wanted, but it sold. 510 00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:34,440 That's life. 511 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,400 And you know, it's been a series over the years 512 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,760 of events like that happening all the time. 513 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,800 Your partner dies and the fellowship 514 00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,880 just wraps themselves around you. 515 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:48,440 You think you have problems, but if you're doing service, 516 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:50,120 those problems disappear 517 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:52,240 because there's things more important 518 00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:54,080 than your own little problems. 519 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,560 The friendships that I've made in Alcoholics and Honors, 520 00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,520 I mean, I've been sober in Seattle, the Bay Area, 521 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,480 New York, and now Palm Springs. 522 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,080 I have friends in all of those places. 523 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,720 I mean, my life has been so full, 524 00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,800 and I hope, you know, I'm getting kind of old, 525 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,560 but I hope I can stay strong enough and healthy enough 526 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,600 to continue to do service because that really is the key. 527 00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,080 There's only one thing that's more important. 528 00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:24,040 Oh, does that mean, oh, five minutes, okay. 529 00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,320 There's only one thing more important than service, 530 00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,320 and that's the 12 steps. 531 00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:31,600 You know, because I can't, my first sponsor, Crazy Robert, 532 00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:34,160 oh, one thing I gotta tell you about Crazy Robert, 533 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,360 Robert's job, Robert worked from midnight 534 00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:41,560 to eight in the morning at a porn shop in downtown Seattle. 535 00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,560 Okay, that was his job. 536 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,520 Well, I had a hard time sleeping when I first got sober, 537 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,920 so I would call Robert up down at the porn store 538 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,480 and say, "Robert, I can't sleep." 539 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:54,840 He'd say, "Great, grab your big book and come down here. 540 00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:56,560 "We'll work some steps." 541 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,920 So I'd go down to this dirty bookstore, 542 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:04,440 sit behind the counter with Robert, and we'd do our steps. 543 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,800 Okay, so anyway, doing the steps, 544 00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,840 the most important part that I got from the stepwork 545 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:13,800 was four and five and eight and nine, 546 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,480 knowing how to keep my own side of the street clean 547 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,760 because before that, all I wanted to do 548 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:23,040 was blame everybody else or blame situations. 549 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,800 I never wanted to accept responsibility for what was mine. 550 00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,240 Well, that doesn't lead to a successful life. 551 00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,240 You know, like, I blamed my parents for no reason. 552 00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,320 I blamed being gay. 553 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:38,480 Well, my older brother's name is Butch, and he is, 554 00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,560 and he's straight, and he was a worse alcoholic than I was. 555 00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,040 He's sober now, by the way, 556 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,880 but I mean, that being gay didn't make me an alcoholic. 557 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,400 What made me an alcoholic is how I felt 558 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,480 when there was alcohol inside of me. 559 00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,160 That's what made me an alcoholic. 560 00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:57,160 So I learned by doing the steps that I can't blame others. 561 00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,400 Now, I still have that propensity. 562 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,200 When something, you know, when it hits the fan, 563 00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,840 I still want to go, "Well, who's fault is that?" 564 00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,040 And then when I start thinking about steps 565 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,520 four and five and eight and nine, 566 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,280 I realize, "Oh, it's your own pen." 567 00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,080 You know, there's a freedom in that too. 568 00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:14,680 When you quit blaming others, 569 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,240 you realize you can do something about it. 570 00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:20,000 You don't have to wait for others to take care of it. 571 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,040 You know, so there's a great freedom in that. 572 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:26,360 So anyway, there's been other benefits from doing the steps, 573 00:26:26,360 --> 00:26:28,760 but that's the one that always comes to mind. 574 00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,680 What's my role in it? 575 00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:32,560 What can I do to fix it? 576 00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,040 'Cause I can't change you or anything else. 577 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:40,040 So anyway, yeah, I am an incredibly grateful member 578 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:41,760 of Alcoholics Anonymous. 579 00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,720 That used to, didn't that used to really kind of tick you off 580 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,160 when you came in here and gave up? 581 00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,160 My name is Joe and I'm a grateful alcoholic. 582 00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:51,000 Heck, are you talking about? 583 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,400 But now, I mean, I really do live 584 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,880 in the state of grace, of gratitude, 585 00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:00,040 'cause I, you know, to begin with, at 79 years old, 586 00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,120 I've lived through two incredible epidemics. 587 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:06,080 I lived through the HID, the AIDS epidemic, 588 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,280 where everybody I got sober with died 589 00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,080 and they died before they were 40. 590 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,040 I was 34 when I got married, or got sober. 591 00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:14,320 So I've lived through that. 592 00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,280 Then I lived through this recently, 593 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:17,800 which I don't know, is it over? 594 00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:18,960 Maybe, maybe not. 595 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:23,200 But anyway, how grateful can I be that I'm still healthy, 596 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,440 I'm still making it, and it's because I'm sober 597 00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,560 and I learned to live in almost the right way. 598 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,280 I still mess up, you know, but I'm really grateful 599 00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,520 and I'm really grateful to be here tonight. 600 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:35,360 Thank you.