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 Well, my name is Megan King. I'm an alcoholic. Probably the most important thing I can say at all.

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 Get sober November 21st, 1988, and have been able to stay sober without alcohol and no drugs. No,

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 no, anything. I've had a colonoscopy. So I did have they did give me some stuff that I and I had

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 open heart surgery recently and they picked me through massive drugs then but it's nothing that

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 was very pleasurable and nothing I was looking forward to being honest with. I'm sorry, I'm not

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 wearing a tie. That's kind of the reason for that too. I'm not allowed to wear anything tied around

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 my neck or my waist. So I'm following orders like like I've been doing for 36 years. 36 years.

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 That's crazy. Oh, I am a native of Reseda. I went to Blythe Street Elementary, Northridge Junior High

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 School, Cleveland High School, went to Cal State Northridge spent my summers at Valley State

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 College, doing the teenage drama workshop. I love the valley. But I couldn't wait to get away from

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 it to be honest with you. You know, I spent a lot of time all over the country. The work that I did

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 took me all over the place. And I really enjoyed it. I, you know, I never wanted to be an alcoholic.

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 I remember I grew up on Lanark Street, right off of Reseda Boulevard, and that was kind of

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 contractors row, you know, and they, there was there was Morris, who was the carpenter,

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 you know, and then and Woody, who was a big contractor, big time contractor, and then there

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 was Mr. Larson, and he was the plasterer and then well named, I might add every after school, his

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 son was a friend of mine, Jimmy, and after school every day, I walked past their house,

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 and he was always in the garage working on his plastering tools. And he would work on them from

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 330 to 536 o'clock, whatever. But he had, I don't even know if they make it anymore, brew 102.

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 That was that was what he drank brew 102. And he could finish an entire case of brew 102,

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 all by himself between 330 and 530. He had the sometimes he would have a friend over there and

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 help him but I remember like my grandmother his smell, and I know now that it's the smell of

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 alcohol being rendered through a liver that's now working very well, you know, and I remember that

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 smell of smell of the county USC. When I've gone on panels there, I know it well. And I promised

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 myself I would never be an alcoholic. So I did as many drugs as I possibly could while I was in high

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 school, you know, anything to stay away from being an alcoholic, but it is of my nature,

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 on both sides of my family. We're riddled with alcoholism, my I have two older brothers,

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 both of them alcoholics, one of them sober, one of them is living on the street for 50 years all

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 over the country, just living on the street, you know, it's like, he also has some other issues,

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 you know, and, and he's been sober from time to time, but he just, it's tough for him to get this

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 thing. I think he is constitutionally incapable of being honest with himself. And it kind of keeps

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 him down. Anyway, all I'm gonna look like I drank plenty, and I have to tell you big drunk a lot. I

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 loved doers. That was my favorite scotch and Miller light for some reason, Miller light,

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 Miller high life. No, that was that was what I drank. And, you know, I became like Mr. Larson,

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 I could drink that stuff, you know, like it was going through me anyway, I'm gonna tell you why

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 alcoholics anonymous has worked for me. And that's all I have the right to tell you about how it has

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 worked for me. I in November of 88, I had attempted suicide early on, and things are not going well

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 for me. I was 34 years old, and I had been living the high life for a long time. And then it became

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 the low life. And then it became no life at all. And I was living with a beautiful editor to south

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 of the boulevard on Ventura there on Dickens, and she had a condo she had the penthouse condos,

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 really lovely. And somehow she liked me. I had been in a party, I was blasted. And she saw me

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 at the party. And she like, zeroed in on me, I did not know that there were people that love

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 alcoholics. We call them Allen ons, you know, but she was an Allen on I could see it and she was she

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 was very codependent as as we came to know the term, and she just was nuts about me. And I was

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 with her for about six months before I was going right out of my mind. She drank about a bottle of

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 wine in a week. And I was, I was helping her do a bottle of wine a week after I had been crazy for,

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 you know, 1415 years, I mean, out of my mind, and I cut my finger while I was typing and I ended up

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 in her bathroom, the master bathroom with jacuzzi and everything was really the nice, you know,

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 not my bathroom, you know, and I opened up her medicine cabinet and everything just kind of saying

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 at the same time she'd been seeing a psychopharmacologist for 16 years, and it was

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 chock full of whatever you might imagine would be in there. It was there and I looked at it,

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 I went, Okay, I know how I'm going to die, you know, and I took pills from each one of the vials

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 looked her plenty, you know, and I went over to the Lucky Seven Motel over on Sepulveda right there

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 before Ventura Boulevard. It's called the Lucky Seven Hotel and I was in room 21 and I took about

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 180 pills and drank a bottle of Dewar's my favorite Scott had some marching powder had some

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 weed and I just as I was going out, I remember saying to myself, I'm glad I wish it was a better

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 way, you know, but it was done. I'd written seven suicide notes out to other people that I didn't

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 want to blame for my suicide like they were going to and it's fine. And I remember going out like

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 that I came to 18 hours later behind the wheel of my car and I was over on Valley Vista Street

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 over there by the by the wash and he was on the radio. You know, it was like this stuff was going

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 through my and I was coming to for a couple of hours. It took me a while to come to when I came

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 to I realized I had a bottle of scotch between my legs. Somebody sold me a bottle of scotch,

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 you know, me and my blackout, you know, I was kind of the reason why I also did a lot of drugs was

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 because I was apt to black out anytime I drank. I came to and the next day after I had a tearful

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 reunion with my girlfriend, my brother was sitting on the edge of my bed. And my brother

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 gotten sober a couple of years before an Alcoholics Anonymous and he was crying. I said,

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 Mike, what are you crying for, man? He said, I think you're gonna make me like, you know,

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 if it had been anybody but my brother, I could have written it off. But it's my brother,

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 he had partied with me the whole time, you know, he knew what I was all about. Yeah,

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 we would get together at his house, Thanksgiving and Easter. And he and I would take off get away

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 from the crowd and we'd go to over the thrifty drugs and go into the cold storage there. And

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 he grabbed two club cocktails. I don't know if they even make them anymore. But they were those

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 eight ounce cans. And he got two of them, like, really, they're awful. They're like,

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 terrible, sweet drinks or whatever it was. And we got out of there and he got in the parking

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 line of, you know, and he drank it down. And I knew what an alcoholic was, because I've watched

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 my brother, I've watched that sense of relief come over. Wow. And then like that, I said, Hey,

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 dude, you don't you want to slow down a little bit down that second one, man, and whatever. I said,

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 I don't I don't know what I'm going to do. And he said, Well, you can't you don't have any insurance,

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 you can't go through shit like I did. What shit? Oh, my God, they made him drink until they

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 couldn't drink anymore. You know, that's how they cured that alcoholism. But he had gone through AA

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 and I gone to a meeting with him out in Newhall. And it was the longest hour and a half of my life.

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 That's what I remember. The guy was talking was like 25 years sober. And I swear to God,

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 he spoke for eight hours. It seemed well, it seemed fun. And I remember as we left that meeting,

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 he was like 40 days sober. I said, Well, Mike, you just keep going back because that's what I

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 heard them saying at the meeting. And I gone to AA one other time when I got popped. It was

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 a Saturday night. I was driving on Vermont over by LACC cup pulled me over. He said, Whoa,

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 I was following a girl. We were racing through Hollywood. And the couple and he said, Have you

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 been drinking tonight? And I said, Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I'm coming from a party. He said, Well,

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 like, what do you have to drink? And I said, I have a couple of scotches, you know,

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 said anything else? And I said, Well, I do have a bottle Mickey Big Mouth between my legs right now.

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 And he said, You have an open container in the car? And I said, No, no, I got the lid on. He said,

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 Get out of the car. He said, Okay, I'm going to administer the field sobriety test. And this was

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 a couple months after mothers of drunk drivers come out in 8182. And I just went up. He said,

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 I'm going to administer the field sobriety test. I said, not necessary. He said, Hey,

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 I'll tell you what's necessary. And I said, No, no, like that. And he looked at me like I was from

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 Mars, nobody had ever turned themselves over to cop before the Rampart division, got to the rampart

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 division, you know, there were seven of us in the back of the squad car, I mean, on top of each

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 other. And the guy who was on top of me was kicking the cage, and they got him out of there,

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 and they just kicked the crap out of him. I was I was kind of a happy drunk. Anyway,

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 I ended up going to one meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I knew everything about it after

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 that. And I didn't want anything to do with it. And I signed my court card for the rest of the

102
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 meetings that I had to go to, I think I had to go to nine meetings. And so I said to my brother,

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 I don't I don't know what I'm going to end up doing that. He said, Well, you're going to have

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 to find a place to go because Brianna doesn't want you living with her anymore. Got that. So

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 took me a couple of weeks, and I ended up at the Victory House in Burbank, which was a home for

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 indigent men, which meant that the government did tell the California State paid for men to get sober

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 in this place. Most of them were coming out of prison, but there was some of us just coming off

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 the streets. And I had nothing. So I qualified in spades. And I ended up in a room with four other

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 guys that snored and farted. And it was awful. And I remember the first meetings that I went to

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 over there in Burbank. And it was like, the first day was a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

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 And guys, they're at the door, the greeter, you know, and he's like, and he said, Oh,

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 you're new, aren't you? And I said, Yeah, and he said, Sorry, sorry, the copy bars over there.

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 Look, I'll save you a seat next to me. And it's like, yeah, I'm sitting next to you,

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 dude. Don't worry. And I couldn't sleep for the next two nights, you know, and by the fourth day,

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 which was Thanksgiving, Thursday, I was out of there. Unit A had a thing called an alcathon on

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 or a thankathon. I can't remember what it was. But that's where I went. Because I figured I could

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 sit in the middle of the back there and eat donuts, and just give the stink eye to anybody

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 who came around. But I didn't realize that giving the stink I was just the best thing that you could

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 do to invite people in and alcoholics anonymous. I got, you know, I first guy to the donut,

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 some guy said, Hey, yeah. So I got on the bus, I went back to the victory house. And there were

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 two guys left out of 87 of us in that place. And they were watching the Twilight Zone marathon.

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 And they didn't even acknowledge that I walked into the room, which is fine, which was fine. And

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 down the hall, I hear this guy said, let's ride the sobriety bus. Nobody was allowed in this place,

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 man. But you could come to the top of the staircase, and you could screen down the hall.

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 So I looked in it was that dude at the meeting that it greeted me right. And I was like, man,

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 and he looked pitiful. He looked like Barney Fife. And I know there's a God because God gave me pity

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 at that very moment. And that pity is the thing that saved my life. I said, I got that on the

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 sobriety by some Bob, which was a primer gray 1969 econoline van, green shag carpet on the dashboard

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 wrap hanging out the bear, and Bob was riding the road to happy destiny. And he was really happy.

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 But I hung I hung out with Bob for 36 years. I you know, I've been hanging out with Bob for a

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 long time. And Bob was like the scruffy kind of dude who's having a hard day. He was a carpenter,

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 but he was having a hard time getting a job at the time he just come to LA from Portland. And

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 he ended up being special effects guy over at Warner Brothers on three different things ended

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 up doing really well for himself ended up in the Pomo, California. And I don't know if you

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 guys know about the Pomo, but it is the most temperate climate in the country. And he lives

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 there. And he's, he's got his workshop. That's all he gives a damn about, man. He's a lovely man,

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 a good grandfather. And he's shown me through his own way of living what sobriety is. We were going

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 through the steps together. And we got to the, you know, immediately I hated the idea of doing

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 any of the step work immediately just because it was going to be work. But more than that,

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 I didn't trust any alcoholics. I had nothing to base that on. So I just kind of hung around with

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 Bob and he didn't care. His deal was like, just hang, just hang. It's okay. You'll be all right.

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 Just hang. And I hung around him and I did the stuff that he did. I would I would do the service

143
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 work that he was doing. I'm going panels with him. And alternatively, at that same time, I was going

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 in the Pacific group. And wow, it was like night and day between Burbank and Brentwood over there.

145
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 So I went through that. And I'm starting to work on the steps. And I'm on the fifth step going

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 through it with Bob. And he says, Okay, so you're number one resent. My father was my number one

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 resent. My father was a Broadway trained actor, booming boys. My name is Megan King. Look me up

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 on IMDb and you'll see who my father is. You can check him out too. But he's this guy who we came

149
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 out here in the 50s. And he started doing westerns. And he you'd you'd recognize him. Anyway, he was

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 had this booming voice and scared the hell out of me as a kid. And he was loud all the time. He was

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 loud, you know, and an actor's life is a weird life to begin with. Because, you know, they're

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 waiting around all day long to get an interview to go get a job all the time, you know, and the

153
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 afternoons could be weird around my house. We all stayed away from my house as much as we could in

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 the afternoon. Anyway, I was four years old. And this was the resentment that I'd written for Bob

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 was my father was I don't even know what I had done. But my father was screaming at me, you know,

156
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 and just taking me apart. He didn't. He wasn't being physical with me. He was just being totally

157
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 overbearing. And I'm four years old. And I'm, I'm peeing my pants. And I just totally shut down. He

158
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 said something and it was like, so we got to that. And we finished the fifth step. And he said, Okay,

159
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 well, what's your what's your part in that? What do you mean? What's my part in that?

160
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 Four years old? He's screaming at me. What's my part? And he said, Well, how old are you now?

161
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 He said 34 years old. He said you carry that for 30 years. That's your part. So a thing was getting

162
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 weird for me. It was way weird for me. So I said, Well, now I've got a resentment for you. So good,

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 pick up the pick up the big book and read page 552. And on page 552. Even if this big book,

164
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 it talks about a 14 day prayer for resentment. And if you'll pray for the person that you have

165
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 the resentment for to have all the things that you want for yourself in your life, don't even have to

166
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 mean it. Just do it. 14 days in a row, you will change. And it's like, what? Oh, yeah. Okay, fine.

167
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 So I'm just on my fifth step. I'm doing the 14 day prayer in about three days. And I decided,

168
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 if I'm going to do it, I'll at least do it twice a day. And in the middle of the third day,

169
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 I had something happen. And I went, I got that I was the one who gave my father all that power,

170
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 even if you're four years old, it doesn't it doesn't matter. I still had given him all this

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 power. So what was to be done resentment and forgiveness. You know, a couple of years later,

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 my parents were living in Portland, and they moved up there. And I drove up myself and my brother

173
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 drove up with his family a couple of days later. And we met there. And it's right before Christmas.

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 And my brother said, Whoo, can you feel it? I went what said shits about to hit the fan,

175
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 pardon my French. And he said, Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Well, this is day the board games are coming out.

176
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 Something's gonna happen, you know, so he had his 14 year old son there. And we were playing risk.

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 And my father and I said, he said, Well, what do you want to do about it? And I said, do nothing.

178
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 And he said, never anything that would have occurred to us before. And so we were playing

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 the game. And my father, I'd taken it quick. And he was like, he started making his noise that he

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 made. And I looked at him. You know, a couple of minutes later, my brother took him in something

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 and you were, you know, and he didn't go anywhere with it. And my nephew was not even one of us

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 picked up on what was going on. And my dad made a noise and his direction. And he went grandpa,

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 you know, I did. And my father was like, I don't know if you guys know soupy sales, but he was,

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 he was black tooth by the end of the guy. There was nothing left of his of that thing that he

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 had gone. My mother died in '08. And they were living up in Portland, and I had gone up there

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 to see them before she passed. And she was one of the most spiritual people I've ever known.

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 She was like, you know, I come to her when I was a kid and I go, Mommy, it's not fair. And she said,

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 You're right, honey, it's not fair. But we're going to do we're going to treat the world the

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 way that we want to be treated. And my mother did treat the world that she was going to be treated.

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 She had altruism before I knew what the word meant. And it was like, she knew how to do stuff

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 for other people. And I didn't get what that was all about at all. I mean, it wasn't about me. What

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 was it about? But on her deathbed, she said, Okay, now you got to take care of your dad. And it was

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 like, God, and I said, Okay, and my father wanted to live up there never wanted to come back to LA.

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 So we're dealing with traffic again. It's like, so we got him out of that. I got him out of the

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 house and got him into an elder living place. And he didn't like that. And then we got him into

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 another one. He liked it there. But they started mistreating him. They started giving him meds

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 when he wasn't supposed to be on meds. And I had to go up there and you know, just run interference.

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 And it was getting hard. I was going up four or five times a year. And it was like, man, and

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 finally, I went up there, what am I going to do? I had seen on the YouTube, a friend of ours lived

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 out in motion picture of in Woodland Hills. And she had just turned 100 years old. She was on Jay

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 Leno. And she and Jay Leno were having a spanner. And my dad said, that's where I want to go. And

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 it'd be like, All right, all right. So they took him away. He'd worked enough. So they really

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 wanted him in really fast. I got him in like within a month and a half, we got him, you know,

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 going there. And he went through all the levels of care that you could go through. He had a cabin,

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 then he had a really nice place. And then he was starting to lose a little bit. And he went into

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 palliative care. And he went into their race dark Villa, which is a really nice hospital,

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 really, really, really nice hospital. And then he went into hospice care. I was there the whole time

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 with him. We were going through this whole thing. And I was I was just running interference. My

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 brother wanted nothing to do with him. So like him, you know, I don't have anything to say to

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 me. And it's like, Okay, okay, well, I'm going to anyway. So a couple months before my dad passed,

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 we had a lockdown. They had it whenever they get the flu out there, they've locked the place down

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 for a week. And they locked the place down for three weeks in a row, I didn't get to see him.

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 But he was having, you know, metal stuff going on, then he didn't related, he just knew that

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 I wasn't there. And it was like, I like abandoned him, I guess, because my anyway, I walked in one

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 Saturday after it was all over, and he was sitting by his computer kind of terse. And I said, Hey,

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 Pop, how you doing? He said not so good. And he went on me for about five minutes in a direction

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 that no human being should ever talk to another human being was nasty, horrible stuff. Your mother

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 would be so I mean, stuff like that. It was like, horrible to listen to it. I listened to it after

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 five minutes of it. I got up and I started to go. He said, Where are you going? I said, I have to

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 listen to this old man. He said, Well, don't let the door smash in the ass on the way out. And I

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 said, Don't worry, I won't. And here's the great thing about it. I had people to talk to about it.

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 I had people who had been through stuff similar. And I knew who they were, because I've been in the

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 meetings, I've listened to what they'd gone through. And I knew the people to go to. And I

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 went to a couple of friends and talk to them. They said, you just got to back off. Here's the deal.

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 He's playing the big shot out there. And everybody loves him out there. He can't yell at anybody out

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 there. You're the last. You're the last hurrah for his screen. It was like the thing that I took

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 as a kid, the thing that I never wanted to take again. I was there. And I was in the middle of

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 that thing. And I was like, Okay, all right. So I called the next week. And I said, Pop,

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 I'm bringing came out my old girlfriend, and he loved her. They loved each other. And so we're

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 all going out to lunch. And so we went out, we had lunch, and he had a great time. The next week,

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 I called him. And he said, Hey, you know, that thing we had a couple of weeks ago said, Yeah,

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 I remember said we should never do that again. Wow. But he said, I want to tell you, you were

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 more wrong than I was in that moment. I just, I couldn't help it. I really did. I just started

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 laughing. And I realized why I was laughing a little later, you know, Karen and I were talking

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 about doing 10 stuff. I did a 10 step that night and said, What was that about? And I went, Oh,

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 I know what it was about. I realized that in all that healing, and that was about 25 years of

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 healing that he and I went through together. I had and that's how this works. This is the best thing

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 that has ever happened to me. Blur none, not no doubt about it. I mean, it gave me a system to

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 go through gave me you know what, I'm still kind of lame and dense from time to time. But I'm vice

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 president of the board of directors for Barney Street. I'm the treasurer for Vesper house. I

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 have a panel that I have been doing for 27 years and brought in the hospital, go once a month,

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 get to see all the people in the detox. I go to three, four meetings a week. They asked me at the

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 detox, they say, Okay, so you're 36 years old. Sober, you know, like, haven't you got anything

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 better to do on a Saturday night at eight o'clock, then hang out with us, then I can

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 actually turn on and say I don't and it's not for lack of opportunity. It's because there's nothing

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 better that I could be doing. You know, I I've changed. I love that I get to be part of something.

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 This is the greatest movement that is unheralded. Nobody talks about this. I'm fine with it. And I

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 you know what, I wish everybody could get this. But I see, you know, I've grown up here, I'm watching

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 all of my friends get older now, you know, and all the people who'd continue drinking and all that

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 kind of stuff. And it's like, I'm 71. Now. I mean, I'm having stuff going on. I'm getting older.

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 But I'm seeing my friends and they're like, ancient. They're like, you know, the body does

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 not take drugs and alcohol all that well for a long time over the lung. And they were my they

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 were my party buddies, you know, and it's like, I just stopped the party 36 years ago. I was lucky

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 to be able to do that and get turned on to this thing. Anybody who may be new out there, I don't

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 nobody looks to be particularly new around here. But anybody who's new, all I can say is hang out

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 and this thing will work its magic. Commit, jump in, don't be afraid. This thing won't bite you.

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 Here's what I found. I'm the yes man now. People say well, you know, and I was always the no man

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 before I was always the guy that said, Oh, you know, if I do that, you know, and I do something

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 for someone else, and I don't get something out of it. What a schmuck I am, you know, it's like,

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 not at all, not at all, man. I every time somebody has said, Hey, will you come and do so and so with

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 me, I haven't mind f'd something that I'm going into. I go into it, I go into with an open heart,

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 and I always have an experience that's always better than I ever could have imagined that it

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 was going to be. And that's what life is for me. Now, a bunch of experiences that I do not have to,

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 I don't have to coordinate how the world goes. I don't have to control the world. The world's

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 happening the way that it's happening. I get to exist in this world. I get to be part of this,

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 which is the great fellowship as far as I'm concerned. I back and recede it. What can we

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 tell you? Thank you very much.