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 My name is Patrick Hale, and I'm an alcoholic, a great pro alcoholic, and I used to get one

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 of your people say that I go, "Yeah, yeah." However, in keeping with, I got sober in 1984,

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 and I asked a guy named Wally Webb to be my sponsor, and nothing has changed since then

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 in that regard. So it's interesting, not that Wally's around anymore, but I have a cadre of

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 men that I can have that conversation with, and it's not one person I can call, like you said,

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 have a group of friends. And my story, what it was like, I grew up not feeling privileged. I grew up

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 in Santa Monica, not too far from here, and all the other kids had more money than us. So I always

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 felt like, and I was not a good student. I was not a good athlete, and I kind of, it's a very awkward

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 situation, happened very early in grammar school, and I got really separated myself from the crowd,

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 if you will. And they put me in the back of the classroom. They put me in other classrooms. They

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 couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. And I don't think it's because I'm an alcoholic. I think

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 it's just because I'm an odd kid, and I don't know that that's unusual, actually, sociologically.

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 I just didn't have parents that were close to me and involved with me. They were off doing their

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 stuff. And I was about, and it's funny, I hear people say, "I remember my first drink." I don't.

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 I couldn't tell you. I just remember, I was in Santa Monica, actually, today, helping a friend

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 whose, the condo they were living in burnt in the Palisades. So he's moving into an apartment there,

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 and I went there to help him out. We drove by this liquor store, and I went, "I remember being 15

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 years old, posting up outside that liquor store, getting adults to go in and buy me a couple of

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 bottles of Rainier Ale so that I could go." And that's where my memory is. I don't remember when

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 I first did that, even. That's how foggy it is. You know, I've heard people talk about blackouts,

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 and I've heard that we alcoholics can have blackouts while drinking and while not. And

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 I had some interesting learning experiences where I thought I'd done Searching and Fearless Moral

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 Inventory. And then people come up to me and say, "Do you remember when you did this?" I'm like,

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 "My sister was one." She said, "Do you remember when you threatened me with a knife?" I'm like,

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 "What?" Like, "No." But I wasn't, wouldn't have been able to make that amends because it didn't

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 come to my memory until she said that to me. So there's a lot of stuff. I'm appreciative

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 for the way that, well, 12 steps are put together because it suggests that we continue to be

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 available to that inventory and to make amends. And, you know, the first writing of it was to

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 make restitution. Sometimes you can't quite put stuff back the way it was. Terrible. I don't know.

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 You know, hammer nails into a board when you're angry, pull the nails out, the holes are still

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 there. But I'm grateful for the fact that I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I tried. I'm not into

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 drunk-a-lugs. I don't have interesting ones. But I went to Santa Monica College for 10 years. Every

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 time I'd start a new semester, I'm not going to drink. You know how that worked out, right? And

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 when people say other issues when they're talking about marijuana or cocaine, it's like, if those

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 were really outside issues, you wouldn't mind if I did a line and smoked a joint before I came in

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 here as long as I didn't drink. Those are not outside issues. And I appreciate the fact that

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 when I first walked into an AA meeting, somebody said to me, "Nothing could affect you from the

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 neck up." I'm like, "Okay, that made sense." I was still drinking coffee does sort of affect

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 me from the neck up, but I still drink coffee. And I smoked tobacco off and on. Not much. I still

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 smoke cigars occasionally, but that I digress. The point was to be present for now, to be able to

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 navigate. Because when I take away alcohol, my problems with alcohol are over. As our program

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 tells me, my problems with me, my problems with this thing that's happening in my stomach right

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 now, because I have to get up here and talk in front of people. That's a little bit of a

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 trauma response. And what's my awareness of it? What am I doing with it? Am I thinking, "Oh,

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 geez, I want to have a drink to take that off." Maybe. At least I can be present for that feeling

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 and know that that's really just me being alive. That's quality of life. Yeah. Okay. That changed

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 for me. That changed for me. I remember my dad. I know I broke his heart. He was an old man. He

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 was born in 1892. That may sound weird to you, but he was 63 when I was born. He was an old man.

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 And I remember he had an apartment in Venice, and I'd show up there because I could get sober. I

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 could sober up there and hit a little one bedroom apartment. And he'd say, "Why do you do that to

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 yourself?" And I'd giggle and shrug my shoulders just because it feels good. Because why do we

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 drink? We like the way it makes us feel. And whether I did any of that other stuff, it was me

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 still chasing that same feeling, which ended up being feeling nothing. Initially, you get the

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 euphoric boost, but it would crash. I ended up in a situation with roommates. One of them had a,

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 like a, I would say cocaine-induced schizophrenic break. The other one moved out. And I thought,

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 heck, I'm moving into my car. How else am I going to be able to afford my drinking? And I lived in

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 my station wagon for a year and a half till I blew up the engine. Then I apprehended my dad's

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 Dodge Dart swinger and slept on the front seat of that. So you talk about living in a living room.

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 I was sleeping in a car behind the pool room for three or four years before my dad passed away.

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 And then I inherited $3,000. And I spent $2,000 on a van. And now I'm back in a hotel in California.

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 And that went on. Well, that's where I got sober. And the reason, you know, you talk about you stayed

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 in rehab because of a cute girl. That's why I came into a meeting. Because I was dating a girl who

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 said she wanted space. Why would she want space? A loser like me wants to hang out with her,

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 but I don't necessarily want to pay the bills. And, you know, I'm still sleeping in my rig behind

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 the pool hall. And I thought, well, maybe I'll get back with her so I show up in an AM meeting.

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 People are telling me, well, it doesn't matter what got here. And I said, no, you don't understand.

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 But truth was, I didn't even understand the depth of my illness until I was sober six months. I was

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 incapable. I remember having the big book in my possession, and I would try to read it. And I'd

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 get through a page of it. And I had no idea what I read. That's how scattered my brain was. I could

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 get to the end of the page. I didn't know what to say. And it sat pretty much pristine in the trunk

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 of my car for a couple years. I went to a book study at Marine Park. And I felt like I was just,

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 I was in Sunday school. It all lasted about 10 minutes. And I got this trauma response. And I'm

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 out of there. But you know what, you know what they said? They said, don't drink or use no matter

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 what. Come back tomorrow. That's what I did. And because it has become a custom in Southern

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 California to read a portion of chapter five, how it works, it gets hammered into your head.

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 And I was about six months sober when I heard a voice. And it was somebody who,

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 not that voice, this guy had married my sister. I have an older sister. She's about, she's a half

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 sister, 12 years older than that. She got kicked out of the house at 18 for being a pill head.

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 AA didn't reject her. In fact, they grabbed her and found her a sponsor. And she got AA,

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 what they call, on the program back then in the early 60s. And she was, in some ways,

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 a bit of my Eskimo because even though I never identified, I remember my mom saying,

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 maybe you want to go to an AA meeting. And I'd shred my what for? I didn't have a clue. And I

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 thought, well, what'd she say? Maybe you'd like to hear the stories they tell. She got it. I mean,

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 we're the last to see it. The people around us, they know. And I spent 10 years trying that. I'm

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 not going to drink this semester. I didn't get through a semester. But soon as I buckled down

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 and said, okay, I'm going to try this, little by little, I got pieces. And one of the key things

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 that happened for me in terms of learning what's in that book was I was invited to actually sit with

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 a group of guys and read a page of the book to each other. So, I'm saying it out loud and I'm

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 hearing it. And this was also well after I got a little of the cloud out of my head. Like I say,

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 it's six months. I didn't have a clue even that I had issues. And after getting sober, the issues

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 are not the alcohol. The issues are me. And then I'm directed to look at myself and do an inventory.

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 I thought, well, I am kind of a thief. And I used to think, if I can get away with it, it's illegal.

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 I thought that was good. That's good rules. No, probably not. So, I had to walk into my old

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 employer that I used to rake the till on. I worked that full room for a minute and give him a fist

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 full of $100 bills. I don't know. I wasn't keeping books, but I at least had to make an effort.

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 And the guy actually hired me back to work the door when I went to X-ray school as things went

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 forward. I was largely unemployable, marginally employable. By the time I got sober, I was

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 polishing cars for Mercedes Benz and being a porter. And not that that's a terrible job,

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 but after 10 years of the opportunity to go to school, that's not where it put me. It put me,

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 and I was driving those cars. Just letting you know. These new dealer trades, brand new car

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 down to San Diego, traded for a different car, drive it back, busted. Okay, I just told that

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 myself. But today, to suit up and show up is one of the first things I got here. Don't drink or use,

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 suit up and show up. So, when I started dating my now wife, I probably should have waited a

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 little bit. I heard a phrase, I don't know if you know this guy, Marc Maron, he's a comedian,

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 but he heard that he is the phrase, and I'm going to clean it up a little further, to screw right

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 past intimacy. So, we, yeah, exactly. It's an easy thing to do and spent a lot of time. I spent 30

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 years, we raised kids. She had a job. She was a graduate student, smart kid. I feel a lot,

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 certainly a better learner than I was in education and I think smarter than I. And none of my kids

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 ever saw me drink or use, which is one of great God's blessings. Not that I was a spiritual giant

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 all the time, not like I had my, certainly had my failings raising kids, but I was there for them.

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 I was cognitively there for them. And the gift, the quality of life that, yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

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 I'm not going to say that again. But it has afforded me more than I could ever have imagined.

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 I was looking for jobs. I had applied for a job with the sanitation department. I applied for

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 something that used, nothing was coming my way. And a friend said, apply for this x-ray program

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 at the BA. And I wasn't really qualified, but I got an old professor from Santa Monica College

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 who liked me, wrote me a great letter. I got in and I decided to show up 35 hours a week for two

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 years. And my gosh, I got a career. I ended up doing my last 30 plus years working at UCLA,

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 doing imaging because I suited up and showed up, learned how to learn. That's where I really first

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 learned how to actually spend time and learn in school. It was done at second grade. After that,

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 I was just cheating in line my way through school, but here I had to do it right, a program telling

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 me to do it right. And life is throwing curve balls. Changes are happening. It looks my wife

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 and I might be separating. I am not going to drink over this. It happens. It's a big life change.

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 Both my kids are out of the house. I think whatever she's, her change in disposition is,

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 whatever my disposition is, I don't know. But I'm grateful that I have program friends to talk to

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 and that I can talk things through. I have a grandbaby that lives a little ways away,

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 but she's in California. It's a 12 hour drive, but I have the facility to get there. And I have the

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 facility to be present and they want me there in their lives. That's the big deal. And I know

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 people. The tragic thing is I know people that were my friends. I don't want to talk about other

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 people, but I'm going to. My wife's brother was somebody who I used to get high with in high

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 school and we were running buddies. He's still alive, but he ain't so. He's my age and his

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 disposition is tragic. The quality of his life is tragic. And if people say this program saved my

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 life, what it does, it saved the quality, the wonderful nature of the way I get to enjoy the

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 way I live. And it might be easier to not be tortured the way I see some people tortured.

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 We are gifted. The fact that this program came along and offered us these principles to work

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 on to practice. What did both of you say? These are a group of principles which have practiced

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 as a way of life and able to relieve the craving for alcohol and allow the sufferer to become

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 happily and usefully whole. That's the phrase out of the 12 and 12. And I'm not a rigid. In fact,

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 it helps that I read it that way, that it's the principles that we have to work. The steps we do,

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 the steps we take, but the principles we work to instill in our lives. And for me, it's sometimes

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 it works. Sometimes it's easy. I'm kind of thinking of a good segue here. I don't know where

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 I'm at in terms of... I got funny. I had a sponsee I worked with a while and I was not the person for

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 him. I wished he'd gotten sober. In fact, he came with me. I spoke at the last time I spoke at this

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 meeting over at the other meeting. And he ended up in a place called Beacon House, which is a pretty

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 rigid lockdown. He wasn't even allowed to go out of there. He could leave, but he couldn't go back

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 and he couldn't have a cell phone. And that was for six months. And then when he went to go make

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 amends with his folks, someone went with him from Beacon House. He had a three by five card to read

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 his amends. They drove back to Beacon House. And that kind of structure was something that

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 this person needed. I'm glad nobody tried to put that structure on me. You would have been

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 an embargo. I'd say the resistance to being told, and yet thankfully here we're given suggestions.

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 But some people need a little more guidance. Some people need a little more structure.

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 About the beginning of the pandemic, some friends, sober friends, since I've been sober a minute,

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 I met a few old timers and they pulled together a Zoom meeting of double winners. And they

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 introduced this Al-Anon business, which I'm going to make a joke out of it because that's what... But

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 it put a different slant on because the 12 steps as I was directed is to look for my part in it.

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 And if that's always my input, that can be defeating. Even though I need to be responsible

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 and make sure I look at where I'm responsible, there's a point where I also need to look where

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 am I going to be able to take care of myself despite the insanity going on around. And there's

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 a lot of the... Whether it's alcohol directly or the alcoholic family, which is why they call it

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 Al-Anon. What did he say? Lois said she realized she had a problem when the shoe was flying out

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 of her hand. She was throwing it at Bill W because he was going out the door to an AA meeting. He was

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 getting well, but she was twisted. So she was not the drunk, but the insanity was part of the whole

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 problem. And learning to take care of oneself in the face of what's going on around us is

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 another level that I was introduced to by these guys. And it's AA. It's not that

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 it's not the principles of alcoholics anonymous. And in fact, it's just that for me, I had to be

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 steered in that direction for a little bit of self-care. And I wonder sometimes I had my father

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 being whole, both of his siblings had passed. And one of them was very likely an alcoholic,

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 his sister. And his father died when he was three. So when people talk about this being genetic,

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 we've learned a lot more. When they talk, the original writing was it's a physical allergy

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 and an obsession of the mind. They've found that some people's livers inherently don't metabolize

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 alcohol the same as others. So it's acetate or something ends up in the blood and creates

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 craving. And so the cycle begins more immediately for some people. But they also found that while

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 drinking that condition can be created over time, ergo the progressive nature of our disease, which

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 is what the book observes. And the science follows right along with that, that if we keep drinking,

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 we then turn our livers into something else. The way they function actually creates more craving.

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 Yeah, it's being able to be present and know that I don't ever want to do that to myself again and

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 stay in the opportunity to be of service and take care of the people around me. And I just retired.

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 So I feel like this is a third life for me. I feel like my, and I don't begrudge my drinking and

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 using yours. There was a certain amount of fun there. I mean, for me, I got it. But there was

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 also the failed attempts at adulting. What did I just get? I just got a letter that I have to,

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 something to do with insurance and verification, my wife and I'm like, okay, I have to go find

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 these documents. Okay. It seems arduous, but it's adulting and it's something that I'm going to get

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 around to doing it. I didn't have to do it. I opened it. I got to do it now. No, I don't. I

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 can put it down. I can make time for it. I will do it. And that's me navigating my little baby

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 trauma responses to all sorts of stuff that happened all the time. It's feeling what's

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 going on right here and learning to just say, okay, take a breath. I wonder if I just hear

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 a thing. Some people know a lot of the history of AA. I've learned a little of it. Roland Hazard,

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 some fellow who was apparently a wealthy guy that had an alcohol problem and traveled to see

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 Carl Jung in Europe. And the most recent thing I heard was that Carl Jung almost didn't tell him

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 what he told him, which is that the only people he's seen with his kind of alcoholism gets over

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 find some sort of spiritual, have a spiritual take. And he said he almost, later before he wrote

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 something, before he passed, that he almost didn't tell him that because it wasn't scientific.

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 Because to give him a suggestion, he was a doctor, medical doctor. Carl Jung is a

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 psychiatrist. He almost didn't say because it wasn't a scientific approach to have a spiritual

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 approach. Now, we ended up with a lot of the languages decidedly a certain religious approach,

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 but it's, there's a big difference between religion and a spiritual approach. And thank gosh,

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 they put that, they call it the wide arch. Was it atheist Ed? Jim Burwell, I think was his name.

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 His story is in at least one of the books. I think it's in the latest edition too. But he said,

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 he's the one that kept coming back. You guys are nuts. I'm into the psychology of the

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 self-examination, but this God business is too much. If sometimes my spirituality may be God

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 centric, but you know, I don't know if you guys, there's that page 417, acceptance is the answer

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 to all my problems today. Nothing. Because when I'm disturbed, I find some person, place, thing or

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 situation, some fact of my life unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that

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 person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it's supposed to be at this moment. And

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 it goes on to say nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. I often read

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 that and go, okay, but people make mistakes. Things happen randomly. But I know that for me,

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 one of the things this program suggests is a loving God. And therein lies my ability to have

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 compassion. I get compassion very sometimes, but that's my goal. My goal is to have compassion.

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 My goal is to be kind. And that's where I'm, if I'm looking at something that is going to be

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 in line with God's will for me, you know, it's pretty short prayer. I don't get to ask for my

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 kids' health. I don't get to ask for money. All I can ask for is knowledge. That's what the prayer

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 says. I can ask for knowledge of God's will for me, period. Now, whether what that means could

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 be a pretty broad brush, but now I don't get, I just have to listen. And that's where to me,

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 that's the meditation part. That's be quiet. So I'm of a mind often to just say a whole lot more

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 to say, and I'm getting there now. I appreciate being asked to come share with you guys and I'm

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 going to cut this short and have a lovely evening.